I am an Ivy League-trained divorce mediation lawyer with a practice that is 100% mediation. I have helped over 1600 Massachusetts couples get divorced quickly, affordably, and as cordially as possible.
When I meet with you, I educate you about MA family law in Boston and Suffolk County and the decision points for couples who are divorcing. I explain to you how family and probate court looks at a couple’s finances, and I lay out a variety of options with crystal clear numbers. I facilitate and guide your conversations about the issues that need to be addressed: division of property, support (if any), and parenting plan (if you have minor children).
I work hard to make sure that both spouses get to be heard in this difficult time, but I also guide conversations to the many practical decisions that will be written into your separation (divorce) agreement.
Within a day of our first meeting, I prepare an initial draft of all court documents, including the separation agreement so that you have a complete overview of what your divorce and post-divorce life could look like. We typically finalize the documents at a second meeting, 1 to 3 weeks later, and then mail them to Suffolk Family and Probate Court, where you will have a brief, 10-15 minute hearing that the court schedules 1-3+ months after you send in your documents.
If you both prefer to participate in the court hearing on Zoom, I can submit a jointly assented to motion to the court requesting this.
I maintain a Boston office (617-319-0110) but I do the vast majority of my work through Zoom—you do not need to Google “divorce mediator near me” Boston, Cambridge, or Newton—I am as close to you as your smartphone or computer, regardless of where you and your spouse are.
I am an active divorce mediation lawyer. That means that I actively give you guidance and abundant legal information so that the two of you are in a position to make the decisions that divorcing couples must make and that I write into your separation agreement.
There are several obstacles to couples figuring out their divorce themselves:
I help you overcome these obstacles through clear explanations and gentle, empathic guidance. When you are stuck, I suggest solutions that can work for both your priorities, and I share options that have worked for other couples from among the hundreds with whom I have worked.
I graduated maga cum laude and with honors from Brown University and from a top-5 national law school, the University of Pennsylvania.
Call me at 617-319-0110 to learn more about how Boston divorce mediation can save you time and money and help you begin to move forward in life.
I hear weekly that people find my website enormously helpful for understanding uncontested and mediated divorce in Massachusetts. I encourage you to explore pages on this website to:
Compared to hiring lawyers and fighting in probate court, mediation is:
You need to choose your divorce mediator very carefully if there is a power imbalance between spouses. If one spouse tends to dominate the other in their lives, you do not want a passive mediator. If this dominance in the relationship is brought to the mediation settings, the less powerful spouse may not speak up for themselves. This can result in a separation agreement that reflects the interests and desires of the dominant spouse. Since the mediator must maintain neutrality, they cannot take the side of the less assertive spouse and advocate for that spouse.
An active mediator can, however, create and maintain a level playing field for spouses in mediation discussions. Active mediators, while they do not advocate for a less assertive spouse, are like eagle-eyed referees—they keep the discussions within bounds, calling out incivility or unreasonable behavior and demands. An active mediator uses knowledge of the law to encourage couples to reach fair agreements, and they function as financial educators and financial mediators, helping couples to see their financial decisions in factual terms.
If a more dominant spouse argues, “You are taking me for everything,” an expert, active mediator can immediately show on the division of assets spreadsheet that the dominant spouse is actually getting 52% of the marital assets. The mediator can neutrally ask how getting more than half of the assets represents being “taken for everything”. The mediator can neutrally point out that some judges insist on a 50-50 division of assets and that a judge might reject the agreement because it actually favored the dominant spouse too much.
My experience, financial expertise, knowledge of the law, and active approach to mediation limit the effects of the power dynamics that a couple brings to mediation.
As a divorce mediation lawyer, I prepare all of your Suffolk County family court documents–you do not fill out any court forms. You simply sign the court documents next to the stickies I put on them and mail them to court in the stamped, addressed envelope I provide.
The Boston Probate and Family Court is near the North Station, Government Center, and Haymarket transit stops. The address:
24 New Chardon St., Boston , MA 02114
If you have questions about your Boston divorce mediation case, you can call the court (617-788-8301) or Zoom with them. I have found Suffolk County family court clerks to be more helpful over Zoom than on the telephone. You can Zoom with a clerk MWF between 8am and 1pm at: https://www.zoomgov.com/my/suffolkpf