Family Law Center

The attorneys at this center take a deposit and if you don’t have that much work for them to use it, they will come up with something. My attorney took phone calls from my ex and spent at least 30 min each time «explaining» the situation and charged me for it every single time. They eat up your money with no great advise.

Very so so. Got what turned out to be poor advice
Followed by lack of willingness to help as the situation got worse.

If your assets are simple or few and you can be honest and cordial through the divorce process, then mediation could work for you. If, however your spouse is manipulative and devious, or you have many and/​or complex assets, or if you have no facility or understanding about financial matters, then mediation is not going to work very well because the mediator is totally neutral and not able to take sides.
I was not happy with Mark Johannessen as a mediator as his passive conflict-​avoidant style did not move the process. It was a do-​it-​yourself affair and since my husband was very controlling and I was not involved in our finances, there was no way I could tell if the outcome would be fair. Even though we were billed for hours beyond our meeting times Mark seemed to have no understanding of the negotiable items and I doubted that he did any homework. I was a nervous wreck throughout the six month process trying to understand what the documents were about and whether I knew enough to decide what was in my best interest.
Fortunately we abandoned mediation and got two separate lawyers. What a relief for me. Finally I have someone who is a competent advocate for me and is working on my behalf. Yes, it’s more expensive but I’m confident the outcome will be better since in mediation I was getting exploited and my issues ignored. I can sleep at night now without xanax knowing that my future financial solvency doesn’t rest on my decisions alone.
I think it’s important for people to realize that you may not get a fair shake in mediation. It may look like a better deal with lower legal fees but it’s what you end up with that matters more.

Mediation was good. Was disappointed that Ms. Delzer advised, and charged us to change deeds on our two properties. One in my name, the other in my ex. When we later went to sell both properties, had to switch both deeds back to the original way they were written. It was about $ 600 we didn’t need to spend. We were told that she specializes in real estate law, and that it was the right thing to do. I did call and follow up with an email complaining about what happened. No response.

Divorce sucks, but if you can do mediation, go to these guys.

If you have to get a legal separation and/​or a divorce, do it as kindly and as civilly as you can. Trust me.
And go see these folks. They know what they’re doing.