Legal Advice vs. Legal Information

This is the story of two couples who each wanted to end their marriage without becoming engaged in a lengthy and costly court battle. Unfortunately, they each obtained a very different result because of the way that their respective divorce mediators handled the matter.

Wilma and Harry went to a divorce mediator who told them that they each needed to consult with an attorney in order to obtain legal advice before they began the mediation process.

• Wilma dutifully met with an attorney who informed her that she would be entitled to alimony of between $1,000 and $2,000 per month for 10 years.
• Harry also saw an attorney who informed him that he should pay no more than $750 per month for no more than 5 years.

So what is the correct answer? The correct answer to any legal question is: “whatever a Judge decides after hearing the case!” That is how the court system works. The job of the attorney is to try to predict what he or she believes a judge might decide in a given situation. In fact, when an attorney provides legal advice, he or she is recommending a course of action based upon his or her knowledge of the law, and what he or she believes would happen if the matter were to be decided by a judge.

So, have we helped Wilma and Harry avoid the legal battle that they hoped to avoid when we sent them to separate attorneys? We have not! Armed with the legal advice they each received, they established hard positions and wound up in a legal battle that took several years to resolve and cost them thousands of dollars.

Now let’s look at Howard and Wanda, who met with a different divorce mediator. Their divorce mediator told them to consult with a single lawyer to obtain as much information as they could about the legal issues they faced.

When they did so, that lawyer told them that alimony was based upon a number of factors and gave them a range of what might happen if it were to be decided by a Judge.

Once they were each informed of the law, they returned to their divorce mediator and were able to come to an agreement at a fraction of the cost and in far less time. And perhaps more importantly, they reached an agreement that left their relationship intact!

So if the answer to any legal question is “whatever a judge decides after hearing all the facts,” isn’t directing a couple to consult with separate attorneys sending them on a fool’s errand?

If that is the case, I ask: “Why would a couple seek legal advice from separate attorneys when they could obtain legal information from one? And more to the point: “Why would a divorce mediator encourage them to do so?”

While I realize there may be situations that call for individual representation, such as when one spouse insists on entering an agreement that will leave him or her impoverished, if anyone has a justification for routinely sending divorcing couples to separate attorneys for “advice,” I would love to hear from you.