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March 24, 1999
By BOOTH MOORE, Times Staff Writer
Jay Levy was shocked when his wife, Alison Gerred, asked for
a divorce after only two years of marriage. Yet he knew one thing:
Even though the marriage was over, he wanted a role in the lives
of his two daughters. Things got tough when Gerred began planning
to move with the kids to Phoenix. Facing a custody battle, Levy,
an electronic and security systems salesman from Northridge,
began to interview attorneys.
"They wanted to destroy the mother of my children,"
he remembers. "I knew if we got attorneys involved, we would
end up hating each other's guts."
Instead, the couple went to a financial mediator and a child
psychologist, eventually reaching a divorce agreement so amicable
that they still take weekly trips to the park as a family. Last
summer, the foursome even vacationed together in Las Vegas.
"He had his room, and I had mine," Gerred explains.
"It was kinda weird on one hand, but it was good for the
kids."
Gerred, who did not move to Phoenix after all, and Levy are one
of an increasing number of divorced couples who are settling
their differences outside of court and without litigation. Last
month, a group of professionals formed the Coalition for Cooperative
Divorce in Los Angeles to help.
"There are a growing number of family law attorneys who
are disillusioned with trying to solve family conflict through
the judicial process. It's too adversarial, costly and destructive,"
explains Ronald Supancic, a family lawyer and the author of several
books about mediation.
Supancic leads the coalition, which will share resources regarding
no-court divorce with other professionals, refer couples who
want information and act as an advocate for the nonadversarial
approach.
"We want to change the face of divorce in America,"
Supancic says.
He modeled the organization after the Collaborative Law Institute
in Minneapolis, with one difference. The Southern California
version is interdisciplinary, with financial advisors, mediators,
parenting instructors, single-parent organizations and psychotherapists
represented. In no-court divorce, couples go through emotional
assessment, parenting classes, separation therapy, rage management,
insurance planning and more--all before a petition is even filed.
The process also costs less than the traditional method. According
to Supancic, "A divorce with significant assets costs $60,000
to $100,000. With no-court divorce, that figure plummets to an
average of $5,000 or $10,000."
But the savings is in more than just dollars, says Forrest "Woody"
Mosten, a Los Angeles attorney who specializes in mediation.
"Using mediation instead of litigation can prevent a major
change of life," he says. "A key emotion in divorce
is deprivation. It can affect taking kids out of private school
or moving to a different neighborhood."
An advocate of no-court divorce, Mosten recently opened two mediation
centers in Sherman Oaks and West Los Angeles that can provide
no-court divorces. The centers staff mediators with business
backgrounds, family therapists--even a rabbi.
Many consider nonadversarial divorce to be more healthy.
"It felt good when it was all over," says L. Cohen
of Westlake, who did not want her first name used. Her divorce
was settled through a mediator two years ago.
"When you go to a mediator, you are going together,"
Cohen says. "You have to listen to the other side no matter
how much you have convinced yourself you will never listen to
it again. There is no hate."
The mediation and therapy that couples go through with no-court
divorce is different from marriage counseling, Supancic says.
"Counseling is behavior modification for the long term,"
he says. "Divorce therapy is goal-oriented and specific.
I help couples learn to communicate as separate entities. It's
a journey from being a couple to being two single people who
can look at each other with respect, and parent together."
According to Bruce Derman, a clinical psychologist who practices
in Santa Monica and Woodland Hills, "The child abuse that
goes on in divorce situations is one of the biggest unrecognized
child abuses. I've seen cases where the mother makes a child
get on the phone to the father and say, 'Because you're not sending
more money, I can't see you anymore.' One-parent families are
the norm, but we will erode the foundation of society if we keep
ending relationships in a destructive way."
For information about no-court divorce, call (888) 565-LAWS.
Copyright 1999 Los Angeles Times. All Rights Reserved |
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