Articles | Seattle Divorce Services

Divorce (or Not) – a book by Joseph Shaub

I recently had the honor of being asked to preview a new book on divorce by my good friend Joseph Shaub. Joe is both an attorney and a family therapist. He has worked extensively as a divorce mediator, Collaborative divorce attorney, and Collaborative Divorce Coach. I have enjoyed working with him...

Finding a Lawyer Who Is the Best Fit

When potential clients are in the process of finding a lawyer, they often ask if the lawyer they are considering in our office is "good". Sometimes they even want to know who in our office is "best". The problem is, "good" is the minimum standard (we would not hire an attorney we did not think was v...

Alternative Child Support

Washington has established child support guidelines for how child support is to be calculated by the courts. The courts have the ability to deviate from the guidelines but have an obligation to ensure that the deviated support still meets the needs of the children. The ability to deviate actually...

A Different Kind of Family Law Firm

Yesterday I had another unsolicited resume sent in by an attorney who was interested in Seattle Divorce Services specifically because he really liked the way we resolve family law issues. In fact, several of our recent hires have been attorneys who wanted to leave their firms and join us primarily...

ADR Best Only If We Are Getting Along?

Many people assume that Alternative Dispute Resolution methods (like Mediation or Collaboration) won't work if the couple is not getting along well, and that their only option is heading straight to court. In fact, Mediation and Collaboration are actually designed for conflict management. Too ofte...

Collaboration – A Decision Making Model

A good friend recently pointed out to me that Collaboration may best be described as a Decision-Making Model. A divorcing couple has many decisions to make. These include decisions about property division, support, and if there are children, how to parent in separate households. In our state, how...

What is Early Mediation?

Early Mediation is typically an intervention early in the case to try and keep from going into litigation. In other words, it is an attempt to see if the parties can work cooperatively to resolve the case before heading down the adversarial path. At this stage in the case, the parties are wanting...

On Leaving and Being Left

In most divorces, and indeed in most relationship breakups, there is a person who has chosen to leave the relationship and a person who is being left. A key difference between the person who is leaving and the person who is being left is that the person who has made the choice to leave has had all t...

Karen Bonnell on Holidays with Children

Karen Bonnell, a Bellevue based Collaborative divorce and co-parenting coach, was recently featured on King 5's New Day Northwest. Karen is a co-author with Kristin Little of the book The Co-Parent Handbook. In this video she talks about helping your children through the holidays after a parental...

Collaborative Marriage Planning

At the annual Forum of the IACP (International Academy of Collaborative Professionals) this past weekend, I ran into a concept I really liked - Collaborative Marriage Planning, although it might better be called Collaborative Relationship Planning as it is really intended to help couples plan for th...