Divorce Mediation vs Court: Costs, Custody & Career Earnings Explained

Because that is a lot of what parents fight about, is because the kids, ding, ding, ding, I can say this to dad and he'll do this for me and I can do this to mom, and that causes the problem. So they constantly need to communicate on the side with each other. Welcome back to How Much Can I Make? I'm your host, Mirav Ozzeri. Now, usually when we hear the word divorce, we think fight. But what if it doesn't have to be this way and look at it like a problem solving? I think today's guest is going to show us just that. Alison Gerson is a family mediator who helps couples work through divorce, parents through problems with their children, and many other things. And all of this without going to war. I personally think it takes a real skill to get two angry people to sit down, talk, and actually agree on something. But that's exactly what Alison does. So let's find out how you turn conflict resolution into a career that pays. And by the way, just before we start, if you like the show or like any episode, please like, review, follow. It really helps the show. Thank you. So now let's turn to Alison. So Alison, thanks for coming on the show. You're welcome. Happy to be here. And let's start by telling us what is mediation and what kind of mediator are you? And I'm a family mediator. So I mediate families, mostly parents who have children in common. But I also mediate couples who are divorcing, sometimes with children, sometimes without children. And so mediating is talking to both parties. Sometimes there's more than two parties about what it is they want. And my role is as a neutral, impartial third party. I am not a judge, a lawyer or a therapist, or I'm not acting as those things. And so I'm really there to facilitate a conversation between the parties, help them to understand what it is they each want and help them have conversations about that. And it depends on the mediation, but typically there's an agreement that hopefully they will come to. But I believe that the conversation is the most important part. So a couple is about to get divorced and they decide instead of going to court, they're going to go to mediation and hopefully find a solution independently. Right. There's something else besides just mediation or court. They could each get their own lawyers. The goal always is not to go to court, but to have two lawyers is still a litigious process because the two parties, the couple, don't typically talk to each other in that circumstance. They talk through their lawyers and the lawyer's job is to get as much as they can, you know, for each of them. So court happens if they can't come to some agreement. So when couples go to court in a divorce, that's like that's not a good thing. It is definitely the worst case scenario when you need a judge to make those decisions. Whatever they agree on the mediation, does that hold like a court ruling? Correct. I am not a lawyer at all. And so when I do mediations, I do them with my with a partner who is an attorney. and you don't have to, but that's how I do it. And when they come to agreements in mediation, then those get written up into a separation agreement that is a legal document. The mediation goes through every issue that needs to be discussed in a divorce, which is asset division. That can be just assets. That can be, I mean, that can be just money. It can be your house. And custody, children. Let's say there's no children. It's asset division and support, whether one spouse gets support from the other, what used to be called alimony. It's called maintenance now. And if there are children, then it's custody. And whoever doesn't have physical custody, it's their parenting time. It could be joint custody too. So you work out a parenting agreement and legal custody, which is about making decisions for the children and then support for the children as well. So those are all the issues. So if you get to an agreement on all those issues, mediation's over, you've done it, you've gotten an agreement. They can hire an attorney to then draft up their separation agreement, that gets submitted to the court. And then if they want to get a divorce, then it's just a matter of filing for a divorce. The separation agreement is the terms of the divorce. Now, you mentioned that you're not a lawyer, but what kind of certificate or study you had to do in order to be a mediator? There's a 42-hour training that you do. And I did this in 2007. It's a kind of like a basic mediation training. Everybody else was attorneys and therapists. And afterwards, I was like, I went up to the guys who ran it. I'm like, I can't hang up a shingle and become a divorce mediator. So they sent me to a community mediation center. So there are community mediation centers in each borough in New York and Brooklyn. It's called the New York Peace Institute. And they have great trainings. So you would do trainings with them. And then you would do a like a mentorship and a not only the 40 or 42 hour training you would do you get cases. So that's what I did. And I had a mentor and I started mediating landlord tenant cases. So you get your feet wet. You you mediate these cases with with somebody watching me. And then I did another training that's called PINS, Parents in Need of Supervision. It's kind of the mediation I always wanted to do, which is parents and their teenage children. maybe if the kids are truant or on drugs or whatever, and they need to rein them in. In a mediation, the couple has to have a balance of power, right? You have to have a domestic violence training. One of them can't be the type of person that's strong-arming the other one, that the other one is afraid of that one, and because then that person will give in. So we have to be able to spot domestic violence, or even if it's not physical domestic violence, some sort of harassment or intimidation. Sometimes we do mediations and you notice that that's the case. I had one that I noticed that was the case and we tried but eventually we said I sorry you going to have to go to attorneys because it was not fair for one of the parties because the other one was abusive Strong Abusive but more I would use the word for this particular case strong And the other party wasn quite understanding what this party was doing and was going to fall for it because that's how their relationship was. And we felt that that person needed an advocate. Can you give me the pros and cons for going to mediation rather than the court? So especially when there are children, because you are having a conversation with your ex-partner and delving into deeply why you want something. So it's part therapy and part legal? That's what some people feel. I mean, again, we're not therapists. But yeah, because they come in and they say, I have to have the house. I have the children. I want to have the house. I need to have the house. So it's not just a matter of let's discuss the house. it's about what does the house mean to you? Why is that important to you? What will that give you? You know, and it's my kid's home. I want to be able to have a steady place for them, all these, whatever it is. And these are people sometimes who have not had these conversations. They fight about X, Y, and Z, and they've never sat down and discussed why X is important to them. So there's all reasons underneath. And then the person who's listening to it starts to understand and feel for that person. So we do a lot of therapy stuff, which is reflecting and looping so that the other person can hear it again. And then the court, it's just litigious. And, you know, the attorney is trying to get as much as they can get for their person. We always say that in mediation, we're going to help you pay for your child's college. In litigation, you're going to help pay for the attorney's kids to go to college. That's a good line. Yeah. Can you walk me through, let's say a couple comes into the room. How does it work? What happens in the room when a couple comes in? Unfortunately, we don't walk into a room anymore. We walk into Zoom, which just kind of, you know, we used to do it in person and now it's just so much easier. We start with telling them about mediation. It's a confidential process and it's their process and we're not here to make any decisions. So we explain the process of mediation again. And then we start with, we want each of you to tell us what it is that is important to you. What is it that you're looking for? Sometimes it's financial stability. Sometimes it's their kids. It's always about the kids. I keep those notes at the top of my notes and I constantly reflect back and make sure that we're holding them to that. Does it happen that the mediation fails? Yeah, it happens. I wouldn't necessarily say it fails. It's more, I think they get tired of the conversation sometimes. So it fails a lot of times because people just want justice. They want their day in court. They want a judge to tell them what to do. Or in private divorces, they just want the lawyers to handle it. On average, how long is the process of mediation between couples? Each mediation, at least the first mediation, is two hours. If you do an hour, you're just getting started. You know, so you really want that full two hours. And I would say mediations average four to eight hours. Oh, that's all. So that would be that would be two to four sessions. We had a couple ones that they wanted us to help them figure out how to clean out their garage, you know, down to. And another one came with a list that had you get the power cord, you get that, you know. So some people need more and some people can do some of it offline on their own. You mentioned before private mediation versus court mediation. Can you explain to me what is the difference? Private mediation is, that's how I do divorce, is privately. So my clients come to me, however, referrals or through different organizations or forums that we have our name, and they pay full price. So like the price of a lawyer. I also am a mediator. I am on the roster for custody and visitation for the New York City courts. So I get assigned to cases. These are parents who have children in common or a child in common, and either they've never been married, so they don't have an existing custody and visitation order that was part of their divorce. Or it's post-divorce, meaning they already got divorced, they already had an order, but they're looking to change it. So they were married, but they want to change something to the custody and visitation part of it, and they go to court. One of them takes the other one to court and they get into court and the judge or the referee will say to them, your court date is March 30th. Would you like to try mediation before then? And they say yes or no. And then we get assigned the case if they say yes. And we try to mediate with them before they have to go back to court, hopefully to reach an agreement. It's it's been an amazing thing for the New York City family courts because it's been unclogging their cases. I will get to an agreement with these people and they'll go back to court with an agreement. So all the referee has to do or the judge is, do you agree to this? Yes, sign it. It's done. Personally, I prefer these cases. I don't get paid as much, but I prefer them because I don't like talking about money. I don't like the money. I don't like the splitting the house, splitting the assets. It's dry to me. And I kind of let my partner do a lot of that. And then when we get to the parenting, I chime in and do a lot of that. But there's a lot of emotions in it. And I like that. Do you have a case that stands out that you can tell us about it without mentioning names, obviously? I have one really fun one I'm going to tell you about. There was a private mediation that was not a divorce. We had a couple who, this was so many years ago, they couldn't decide what to name their child. Not that they couldn't decide what to name their child. He was Catholic. She was Jewish. And he wanted to name it a family. He had a family name. It was a Catholic name that he wanted to name the kid and the mother was like, oh my God, I can't, we can't. It was, you know, if it was going to be a boy, they didn't even know what sex it was. And we did we did it like a by the book mediation with a you know we had a piece of paper and we had pros and cons And anyway they came to an agreement that this Catholic name would be his I think it was going to be his first name So when he was in school, he would always hear it and the grandparents would call him that, but the name they both liked would be his second name and that would be the name they called him. So it was great. We got to an agreement. I would say I Googled them or looked on Facebook for them a few months later they had a girl oh never had a boy that is funny what is more lucrative court mediation or private mediation depends for me i make more money on the courts because i do more of them even though i don't get paid very no but one against the other do they get paid by the hour or by the case so how does it work it's all by it's all by the hour um and it's not so so let's Let's just talk about the private for a minute. It's not like an attorney that takes a retainer. We charge by the hour and they have to pay at the end of the session. What do you charge per hour? My partner and I together charge $4.75 an hour. If you really wanted to do this and have a lucrative business, then you would do a lot of networking with couples therapists, other attorneys. So that would be much more lucrative. I don't love it. My partner has her own business also separately. So it's not something we make a lot of money on because we don't do a lot to sell ourselves. The court mediations, I love them, but I only make $75 an hour. But I have 13 to 15 clients at a time sometimes. In my research for this segment, I read that to do a couple mediation in New York City goes anywhere between $3,000 to $9,000. Is that correct? It depends, yeah. I mean, so I would say if we're charging $475 an hour and we have... Eight hours or 10 hours. Eight hours. You get to run there, right. What a court would cost? Oh, God. Could be 20, could be 50. I know somebody who spent $150,000 and that was just her. Oh, no. It depends on how contentious it is. And, you know, I don't know if you have any friends who've gotten divorced. I have two friends who've gotten divorced with narcissistic husbands. And these people just want to keep going. They just kept fighting to see how much they could get. And then all of a sudden there's crypto. So we have to dig into the crypto. How much was the crypto? And then you're hiring a forensic accountant for thousands of dollars. And yeah, it can get really, really, really litigious and nasty and expensive. Like I said, you're paying for your attorney's kid to go to college. Right. So what other cases you get? Landlord and tenants and divorced couples? What else? Right. So I don't do those anymore, the landlord-tenant. But the one that I really want to do, and I've done it a little bit here and there, is parents and their children. And I've done some cases of parents and their children like their teenage children. I do really love that because... What kind of thing? So let's just say the parents are having a really hard time with the kids. The kids aren't listening. The kids are, you know, not so much skipping school, but drugs, alcohol, coming in the house, shutting the door, not coming even to dinner, you know, that kind of thing. And they want to do mediation with their kids because they feel like they're losing their children, is what I would say. And so they're really interesting cases because the kids come in and they don't talk and they're looking at all these adults around the table. And my role is this balance of power, right? you're you're as important at this table as your parents are and i don't necessarily say it but i show it and i show it by by talking to them and asking them what does that feel like to you what you know what what did what happened when mom said that when your dad did this and little by little the kids talk and express what's going on with them and why they're sick of their parents doing this or and then the parents talk about their fears about their child and why they're they're worried about that. It's amazing. It's so great. And you have to be very aware. Like I just did a training on cultural differences. I did a mediation once with this. It was so crazy. It was like June or May or June of his senior year in high school. And he was, I think he was first generation Indian. His mother was born in India and they lived in Queens. And the mother was so upset that the kid was coming home late. He's coming home late. He comes home late every night and I don't know what to do. And I, you know, just, and I'm thinking she's worrying. No, she's not worrying. And so I'm asking, what is late? What time is he coming home? He comes home sometimes at five or 6 PM. Personally, I'm thinking, yeah, he's 18 years old. What the hell is your problem? And I'm kind of looking at him like, why are you not standing up for yourself? This is crazy. It turns out what she didn't like was he's supposed to be home for dinner. He's supposed to be home for the family dinner. And he comes in, he's lost his key, he's done whatever, he's rattling the door, he's making noise. So now all the neighbors know that he's coming home late. So it was so interesting. But you just have to go with it because culturally, that was their issue or her issue. Interesting. What would you say is the important skills or character traits for somebody to be a good mediator? That's a good question. Definitely have to be a good listener. You have to care about people understanding each other. I have empathy for people and I don't have judgment. And I just want people to tell me why that's your position. Why is that important to you? What does that mean to you? So I think it's a curiosity, a curiosity for where somebody is coming from. If somebody starts a practice, let's say they went through the training, how long do you think before they actually can make a full income? If they already an attorney So that was the other thing is a lot of people who are attorneys and even if they family you know if they family attorneys they matrimonial attorneys they done divorce A lawyer could take a training and say he a mediator or she a mediator right away But somebody like me or even a therapist who starts from nothing you know I did my training in November of 2007. And I think we saw our first clients like two years later because you need to practice. But I would say before you're really making an earning, if you're not turning your law practice into that. That's quicker. A couple years. What would you say is the biggest misconception about mediation? That you can't have a lot of money to go through mediation. I think a lot of people who have a lot of assets think that they can't do mediation. That tied with if you're high conflict, you don't get along, whatever, you can't go through mediation. Those are both false. And if somebody you did mediation and they agreed and then a year later somebody negate on the agreement. What happens in that case? So in that case, they have a court order and they go back to court because somebody is in violation of the court order. And what's the biggest challenge about being a mediator? Not for the courts, but privately, I would say getting clients. Yeah, just like any business, right. What's the biggest reward? Oh my God, just seeing parents communicating with each other, understanding each other, saying they're sorry, working through issues that they've had for years. It's like, it's amazing. And typically in my court sessions, the first session, I'll never let the attorney for the child come to the first session if I can help it. Because I'm like, you don't want to be in the first session. Because they're yelling and fighting, not always, but sometimes. And you're a liar, you're a this, you're this, and they have to get it out. And I just let it go. And I listen, I reflect, I loop, I do whatever you do. and then at the end maybe sometimes the last 20 minutes we can get some sort of agreement on something but then i'm like okay that's you know you guys are probably pretty exhausted it's been two hours let's make another session come back the next session they are ready to work oh it's like it's like amazing it's like i had somebody observing me because he was trying to to become a mediator for the courts and after the first session he's like oh this will never work i'm like maybe i don't know and then the second session we got the whole agreement like it was done in that session. And he was, what? What happened? I said, because they got out what they needed to get out. They felt heard. They were ready to move on and do what they needed to do for their kids. You know, in mediation, you don't give advice. You really, because you have no skin in the game. And you don't, if you give advice and it looks like you have skin in the game. But the one advice I do give to people is I will say, and not to everybody, but it depends on the parents and what's going on with them. I will say your children, especially if they're smart, And as they get older, you know, sometimes they're two years old and sometimes they're 12. But as they get older, they will learn that the two of you don't communicate. And they will put that over on you and they'll manipulate you and they will, you know, use that against you. And your troubles will only get deeper and worse. So the most important thing the two of you can do is to constantly communicate. Don't make assumptions that what the child tells you is true. Always say, thank you for telling me I'll talk to your mother or I'll talk to your father and double check before you believe it. And also tell your children, I spoke to your dad and he told me you got an A on a test. I spoke to your mom and she said you made a goal in soccer. All the kids here is mom and dad are talking and they're talking about me. And then they can't do that to you because that is a lot of what parents fight about is because the kids ding, ding, ding. I can say this to dad and he'll do this for me and I can do this to mom. And that causes the problem. So they constantly need to communicate on the side with each other. So that's the only advice I give people. And it's not biased. And I make sure I tell the story with using both of them. So do you have dreams of doing mediation of other kinds between businesses, between nations, maybe? I don't know. Yeah, it's funny that when somebody told me that the whole way I got into mediation is I was going out with somebody and her partner was, she said, oh, she's going to be late because she's going through mediation with her ex. I'm like, what? Mediation with couples? Like I only knew it as a union, big union, you know, labor disputes or Middle East peace or something. So that's how I got interested in it. No, I kind of don't. I mean, maybe if I were younger. Do you see yourself continuing doing it for a long time? Do you love it? I do love it. I do. And I love that it's like my own hours. I do it like right here. I, you know, I don't have to go anywhere. Because there's sometimes no shows. And you know, I used to travel to Queens and you get there an hour after traveling. And then it's like, they didn't show up. So I love doing it remotely. We lived in France for a year. And I did them from there. Oh, wow. Which was great. So yeah, I see myself. I mean, I've got a 29 year old, but I also have a 12 year old. So I'll do it at least until he goes to college and then we'll see what I do. I have so many friends that are divorced. I wonder if they went to court or mediation. I never asked them. One of my friends, I said to her when she started, you really should do mediation. And she said, no, it's too complicated. It's this, it's this. I said, this is how it's going to end up. And three and a half years later, and really few hundreds of thousands of dollars later, That's exactly how it ended up. Oh, no. No, exactly. Exactly. So it's, and then I have a good friend who did mediation and she did two sessions and they're done. People should take this as an advice because you really could save a lot of money. Good to know. Yeah. All right. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. If this conversation made you think differently about divorce, relationship, mediation, or about your own skill set, please share this episode with someone who needs to hear it. And before you leave, please like and review. That really helps the show a lot. Thank you and see you next week on How Much Can I Make?