The way "divorce mediation" works in Détente process is that two unbiased mediators (an attorney-mediator who knows the law and a divorce coach who is also a marriage and family counselor and who helps with emotions and facilitates communications) give you personalized guidance and tools to resolve divorce disagreements yourselves. This significantly diminishes the conflict and increases the awareness that you are responsible for your own issues and are able, capable, and successful at responding to them. The results are less fear when you regularly interact with each other after the divorce, and increased confidence in your ability to co-parent children. Mediating in Colleyville, Southlake, and the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex has been couples' and parents' first choice to avoid the emotional and financial costs of litigation while privately negotiating separation, divorce, post-divorce modifications, child custody, and child support in Texas.
It took a seasoned trial lawyer and mediator in Colleyville, TX, Stacey H. Langenbahn, J.D., named one of the Best Lawyers in America 2012, to make mediating and divorce mediation in Texas an even more effective and more affordable way to divorce (or to resolve divorce related disputes) than ever before.
Warning: Mediating is not the way to deal with family violence or threats of harm or injury to you, your children, or anyone in your household. If you or someone else is in danger, call 911 right now. Once you are safe, talk to a shelter, an attorney, or the court clerk about an emergency protective order the cost of which is free.
What the mediator team does at Détente Collaborative Mediation:
- Plans for your future relationships and financial wellbeing
- Provides a professional, lower cost alternative to divorce litigation
- Takes care of immediate needs to avoid unnecessary court action
- Teaches you Détente’s exclusive and proven effective T.R.U.C.E. formula to successfully negotiate agreements: five incredibly simple and easy to remember steps that work anywhere, anytime, with anyone
- Educates you about the law
- Makes the complex simple
- Strives for fairness
- Goes at your pace
- Provides a one-stop-divorce-resource
- Writes a binding agreement ("Mediated Settlement Agreement" or MSA) that is easily incorporated into a final divorce decree
What the mediator team does not do at Détente Collaborative Mediation:
- Drafts a divorce petition and divorce decree, QDRO, and court divorce orders or attends a divorce prove up hearing
- Sings Kumbiyah
- Psychoanalyzes couples, examines their childhoods, or does therapy
Here's what the mediator team does:
Plans for your future relationships and financial wellbeing.
It is often hard for couples (and even harder yet for the “leavee spouse”) to look beyond the present difficult situation to the future. Détente mediators ask you to think beyond just today and tomorrow and to consider your long term future and that of your children as you are negotiating. We encourage you to treat each other with respect during your sessions and outside of them so later you can sit comfortably together at your child's birthday party, graduation, wedding, and the birth of grandchildren. From a financial standpoint, the way you structure a divorce settlement (with more or less liquidity) will have lasting effects on your income and retirement for many years down the road. We provide resources for you to get long term financial projections to help you decide whether to cash out or to keep your 401k and IRAs for example.
Provides a professional, lower cost alternative to divorce litigation so more people can affordably divorce.
More and more couples are looking to our divorce mediation team for mediation services and solutions when they need professional help but they cannot afford or choose not to use the traditional legal system for divorce, child support, custody disputes, or modifications. Détente Collaborative Mediation is designed specifically to be cost effective and efficient and to incorporate the talents of multiple skilled professionals as needed. We are proud to serve the needs of couples, parents, and children in our communities as we make the best peace possible in families split by divorce, and change the way people (including lawyers, judges, therapists, accountants, and parenting specialists) think about divorce.
Focuses first on taking care of immediate needs to avoid unnecessary court action.
The first thing your neutral Détente collaborative mediators do is help you deal with pressing problems you feel must be handled right away. Often couples are emotional and stressed about cash flow; paying the mortgage, insurance, bills, and credit cards; supporting the children or spouse; co-parenting the children; or making alternative living arrangements (which can be complicated by young children, unemployment, infidelity, or alcohol, drug, pornography, gambling, or sex addiction). Early negotiation through Détente’s exclusive and highly effective T.R.U.C.E. five step formula is an extremely important initial step for spouses to deal constructively with the practical, financial, and emotional realities of divorce and to protect their children from unintended effects. From the beginning, we help manage the chaos and uncertainty so no one feels so angry or desperate that he or she thinks there is no choice but to file a court case and/or a temporary restraining order (T.R.O.) when those same issues could be resolved privately through Détente mediation. Between them, two spouses represented by family lawyers can easily spend on one temporary orders hearing in the first two weeks of a divorce what an entire Détente mediation process often costs start to finish.
Teaches you Détente’s exclusive and proven effective T.R.U.C.E. formula to successfully negotiate agreements: five incredibly simple and easy to remember steps that work anywhere, anytime, with anyone.
We believe strongly not only in helping you resolve current issues, but also in giving you the tools to confidently resolve whatever conflict your ex-spouse, children, work, or life throws at you after you leave the safety of your Détente mediation. You will get real live practice every mediation session with the easy to remember five step T.R.U.C.E. formula so you will be ready anytime you need or want to negotiate an agreement.
Here is Détente’s T.R.U.C.E. five step formula which has been proven over and over again to work so well:
T – Talk to each other about what is important to you
R – Request relevant information from each other
U – Understand your options
C – Compare your options
E – Engage in negotiations to find the agreement that best serves everyone’s needs
Even if you do not expect to go to court, knowing what the law says and where you stand helps you decide what you can reasonably ask for in mediation negotiations. It also makes it easier to predict what a judge might do if you cannot reach agreement. Your Détente attorney-mediator is able to explain divorce law, provide you with statutes and courts’ written legal opinions that describe typical outcomes, and give you basics of taxes as they affect alimony, child support, and division of certain property and retirement accounts. But because the mediator is neutral, he or she will not give individual legal or tax advice. We suggest you see an attorney or an accountant familiar with divorce to discuss an issue that comes up in the mediation, because only they can independently advise you whether your agreements are wise and meet your individual rights. Getting the advice of an independent lawyer or accountant during Détente divorce mediation does not mean you are hurting the mediation process or that you are turning it into litigation. We believe you should use all available resources to make fully educated decisions. The better informed you are, the better you will understand your options, and the better educated your choices will be about making a rapid and lasting settlement.
Your neutral Détente mediators break down the complexity of divorce (or whatever issues you face) into smaller, manageable parts. For example, for divorce and separation Détente mediators provide a simple to follow worksheet for the spouses to state their income and their current and post-divorce expenses for themselves and the children. The spouses also provide pay stubs, all statements, and list all assets, bank accounts, retirement plans, real estate, valuable personal items, business interests, stocks, pensions, royalties, etc., as well as liabilities and debts. With this information, together we evaluate the need for and the ability to pay child support, medical support, and spousal support before and after the divorce; and categorize assets and debts as separate property or community property, value them, and divide them fairly and sensibly through negotiation and agreement, with due consideration of tax consequences before you sign any agreements. We provide a spreadsheet that makes it easy to see at a glance what the net total value of the property is and how the spouses have decided to allocate the assets and debts between them. Just like on community property and community debt division, we walk you step by step through conservatorship (custody and visitation) decisions about your children: where and with whom they will live; who makes the decision where they go to school; and when they will spend time with each parent. You will always know in advance what you will be discussing in the next mediation session, what work needs to be done, and your next steps.
To ensure your trust in the Détente process, the mediators remain neutral. By being impartial, we can work for both of you to reach the best agreement possible for you and your children. We make every effort to be certain your communications, information exchanges, and negotiations are transparent and even-handed. Ideally, Détente mediators will work together with you as a couple in one room, although we can do separate or individual meetings, and even video conferencing if needed. Détente’s collaborative philosophy encourages mutual, satisfying, and respectful conflict resolution to benefit families. Contrast that with the well known goal and practice in court of both spouses’ intentionally doing everything possible to make the other spouse and his/her attorney look evil, immoral, and unethical and you will see the big difference in the way we approach divorce. Divorce is hard enough and attemtping to destroy the other spouse nearly always backfires. Détente mediators take an approach designed to be healthy, not destructive, for you and your family.
Mediation sessions happen as often or as infrequently as you want, which gives you control of the pace and of the overall cost. The time it takes to finish the Détente Collaborative Mediation process and the costs depend on how ready you both are to resolve the issues. The conversations may be difficult, but with a neutral Détente communication coach and a Détente attorney mediator who knows the law, they are constructive and highly productive. Most couples finish in three to five sessions over a period of several months at a small fraction of the cost of litigation. Every couple’s issues and their ability to work together are different so it may take longer or shorter in your case, but the benefits are the same. Spouses or parents who agree to use mediation to work out the terms of their divorce, separation, or modification are more likely to abide by their agreements, and have a better, more positive, and more respectful relationship afterwards which is really important to your children’s welfare. The value becomes clear when you compare the average start to finish time in the Détente process to having to wait often more than a year and a half just to get a trial on a litigated divorce or custody case in Tarrant County or surrounding counties (and do not forget to add a minimum of at least two more years after that for the trial judge to rule and for any appeals).
Provides a one-stop-divorce-resource.
Détente Collaborative Mediation has established a superior resource network of skilled, independent, divorce professionals who are ready to lend their expertise if you need outside assistance with financial information gathering and analysis; allocation of assets and debts; appraisal of a home or business; determination of tax liability; division of retirement accounts and pensions; concerns for special needs children; or deciding the best parenting plan. Our network of independent professionals also includes alcohol/drug abuse, and compulsive behavior (gambling, sex, and pornography addiction) therapists and treatment facilities.
Writes a binding agreement ("Mediated Settlement Agreement" or MSA)
Once you have negotiated agreements, your Détente attorney-mediator will put your terms in writing. In Texas, a written agreement made in family or divorce mediation is legally binding if it is signed by each party, it states in boldfaced, capitalized, or underlined letters that it cannot be revoked (taken back), and it is signed by the parties’ attorneys if they are there when you both sign the agreement. Because it is very difficult to get out of a binding mediation agreement, we always advise each party to ask a family lawyer and a CPA familiar with divorce rules to review it before signing. Yes, we will be happy to refer you.
Here's what the mediator team does not do:
Drafts a divorce petition and divorce decree, QDRO, and court divorce orders or attends a divorce prove up hearing
Texas ethics rules do not allow a neutral attorney mediator who has acted as the mediator for the benefit of all mediating parties to then represent one of them to draft and file legal papers (divorce petition and divorce decree). The mediator cannot appear in divorce court for a party at a prove up hearing where the judge signs your decree dissolving your marriage. For these reasons, the mediator will refer you to divorce lawyers who will charge hourly fees to review a draft of your Mediated Settlement Agreement or MSA. The MSA is the written agreement the mediator will draft stating the terms of your divorce that a divorce attorney can incorporate into a divorce decree. The family lawyer or divorce attorney will explain the MSA, make any suggestions for change, draft the documents that start and finish the divorce or other action, and go before the judge with you for the last step to finalize the divorce.
Our process is practical and realistic, and is not "crunchy granola law" or based on a theory of "just kiss and make up and play nice". We know divorce is not like that and so do you. There won't be any rendition of Kumbiyah (and that's a good thing because you wouldn't want to hear Stacey sing anyway).
Psychoanalyzes couples, examines their childhoods, or does therapy.
Recovery from emotional and psychological damage from divorce requires professional, individual therapy, time, and patience. Although the mediator team includes a divorce coach who is an experienced marriage and family counselor, his or her role in Détente collaborative divorce mediation is to improve communication and understanding so spouses and parents can reach enduring and fair agreements and successfully co-parent children, not to fix all the wrongs of the past or restore complete happiness. Having said that, if there is any chance of reconciliation, it will be much more likely to happen in Détente Collaborative Mediation than at the courthouse.
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