October 13, 2022 -   In New York, there is a statute that gives a surviving spouse the right to elect against the Will of a deceased spouse, if that Will leaves them with less than the greater of a third of the estate or $50,000. In a prenup, you can waive that Right of Election if circumstances warrant it. Mediation is a good place to talk about your expectations and what would be appropriate to maintain your standard of living. If you would like more information about mediation a [...]

July 16, 2021 -   Strong emotions can arise when you are talking about distributing a pension. By explaining why each of you feels entitled to the pension, you can open the door to a productive discussion and start talking about options in a way that recognizes what you both need and what your expectations are. Through that discussion, you may be able to reach a settlement that's going to meet those needs and expectations.     [...]

January 15, 2021 - {2 minutes to read} Like everyone else in the world, I looked forward to 2021 and the opportunity to put 2020 behind me. While we all hoped that the new year would bring something better — in health, in politics, and in regaining in-person connections to friends and family — of course, nothing changed at the stroke of midnight. And then I thought about expectations. The meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein, speaks about “the next pleasant thing.&rdquo [...]

December 5, 2017 - {3:42 minutes to read} I was talking to a colleague recently about a mediation. She was surprised that it took as many meetings as it did to reach a resolution and that the couple almost terminated the process. It was a relatively short-term marriage of a few years, and they had no children, so she had not expected that it would be difficult. I agree that expectations of difficulty are often misleading. At an initial consultation, I can only judge a mediation’s di [...]

August 16, 2016 - {3:30 minutes to read} When I began practicing family law, one of the first lessons I learned was that clients do not consider all assets the same. The one asset that consistently holds a very special place in the heart of a client is a pension. Clients express feeling a different sense of entitlement to their pension because: They performed at a job where their lives, health and safety were placed in jeopardy; They may have taken less in salary for the assurance of [...]