Legal advisers are special kind of lawyers – the ones who are ready to consult you as an important part of the mediation process. While the business attorneys have long catered as a consultant to their clients, but the divorce attorneys have been accustomed to traditionally taking and handling the whole case.
However, as increasingly more divorcing couples make use of mediation, the requirement for consulting attorneys has increased. Therefore, many divorce attorneys are becoming mediator, and these attorneys are happy usually to work as the consulting attorneys on cases that they are not meditating.
Why Consult an Attorney?
At some point during or before mediation, you may wish to consult a divorce lawyer New York about all your rights. While you could learn a lot regarding your rights from performing your legal research, consulting with an attorney can help you to get answers that specifically are tailored to your divorce case. An experienced attorney can:
- Evaluate your available options. Before mediation, a law coach/legal adviser can help you assess the options of mediation, choose a mediator, and influence your spouse for mediating.
- Act as law coach. During mediation, a legal adviser can also act as law coach on as-needed basis. So, between sessions, you even can consult your legal adviser in order to clarify questions as well as prepare for negotiation. A good adviser can coach in the negotiating techniques and assist you to think up innovative solutions to suggest in mediation.
- Predict costs and outcomes. A legal adviser also can help predict the variety of possible legal results if you went to the court — and cost of paying divorce lawyer New York to fight their case. Knowing the probable outcomes can be important to successful negotiations.
- Review agreement. Perhaps most important, the legal adviser can evaluate any written agreement made by the mediator to ensure that it says exactly what you want that to say and it’ll be legally binding after it is signed.
- Prepare a court document. Finally, the legal adviser can also interface with court, helping you to prepare the documents for uncontested divorce after your settlement agreement will be signed, if the mediator doesn’t do that.
When Should Consult any Legal Adviser?
It is a great idea to have a brief consultation with any legal adviser early during the mediation procedure. If you wait for consulting a legal adviser unless you’ve negotiated an agreement already, you might be in for a few surprises about the legal rights that can undermine your promise to the agreement that you’ve negotiated lately. Going back to the mediation and attempting to renegotiate the divorce agreement at that particular point is disastrous often.
If you start the process instead of with solid legal details and information, you can then negotiate an agreement which takes into account your legal rights. It makes much less probable that the mediation falls apart at last minute. When your mediation moves on, you must feel free to talk to with your own legal adviser on as-needed basis in between the mediation session, whenever you’ve questions about your own legal rights or the proposed settlement terms.
