Paths Through Divorce (7/7): Post-Divorce Financial Roadmap

Paths Through Divorce Episode 1: Mediation, Collaboration, Litigation

 [00:00:00] Did you know there's more than one way to get divorced? There's actually a handful of ways to get divorced, and it's really important to know what might be the best process for you. I'm Kathy Costas. I'm a financial advisor and certified Divorce Financial Analyst, or CDFA.

At EP Wealth Advisors, I work with hundreds of clients going through a divorce, and I help them figure out what is the best way to actually manage the divorce process. There are three main ways. There's mediation, which is when you hire a

 neutral party to be the go-between, between you and your spouse. they are completely neutral. They will not give you advice for either one of you. but if you get along well and if there's transparency where you both feel like you have a good handle on the financials, mediation can be a good way.

to go through a divorce, but if there is any question on the financials or if one of you feels like you don't have a strong understanding of the money piece, that may not be the best way. Another way to get [00:01:00] divorced is collaborative law. What that involves is two teams of experts. Each of you and your spouse have a financial person.

You have a divorce coach to help you manage some of the emotional pieces. And then you have a financial neutral who helps you navigate the financial division of assets. now a lot of times that's. Done in certain areas of the country. It's not done in Southern California where I am necessarily, but Northern California and other parts of the country do a lot of collaborative divorce.

And one of the main differences is with collaborative. When you sign on your team, everyone agrees that if you can't get the divorce. It's all finished within the collaborative process, you have to all start over. You have to hire a whole new team. So that's very good to know. it means everybody has a vested interest in getting it done, but there's also a risk that if it doesn't happen, you have to start all over.

And then there's the other the final way, which is litigation. That's the one in the movies and on tv, the drama. [00:02:00] But honestly, of my litigated cases. very few of them actually end up in a courtroom with a judge. All that really means is you've each hired a legal advocate for yourselves, one for each of you, and those two legal professionals will be negotiating a settlement for both of you.

It is nothing to be afraid of. I remind a lot of my clients because if you think about it, your marriage is a legal contract and one way or another, you have to go through the court system to actually break that contract, just like you would with any legal contract. So hiring your own attorneys is not necessarily a pathway to some vicious fight.

It may just be the most effect. Especially if there is an uneven level of knowledge of your financials or if maybe there's a very difficult custody issue. and certainly if there's any domestic violence, then you definitely need to have that legal advocate. And when you're thinking about choosing that next partner, your legal partner, make sure [00:03:00] you're picking them as if you would someone to remodel your kitchen.

This is a job, this is gonna take a long time. Potentially years, unfortunately. And you wanna make sure it's someone you communicate with well, who you feel understands you, who you feel understands the way you wanna go about this process and what's really important to you. So spend some time talk to more than one legal professional before you choose one just to get those.

Get a different idea from each of them and again, you're asking them, have they worked through a case like yours? What are their ideas about solving sticky issues? How long do they think it might last? What do they think it might cost? All of those different. Parts of your divorce, and a lot of times my clients will go to someone, their uncle or their cousin, or their neighbor, or someone said, oh, it's the best divorce attorney there is.

Make sure it's the best one for you. divorce is a marathon, not a sprint. So you wanna make sure you're taking breaks, you've got support and love from your friends and family, [00:04:00] and you've got that strong legal team behind you, and you're moving along the process in the best way possible for you.