Traditionally, an engagement starts with a diamond ring – a high-end asset. If the marriage never takes place, by law, the ring reverts to the giver. If the marriage takes place, the engagement ring belongs to the recipient, even if the marital disintegration starts immediately. 

Any other gift given during the time of engagement doesn’t have the concept of necessary reversion like the ring.

By law, wedding gifts are marital. That means, presumptively, they’re split equitably in New York. When we say “equitable,” we don’t necessarily mean 50/50; different assets are often split in different allocations – but wedding gifts do tend to be split 50/50 if the parties are choosing to treat it as a marital asset.

As wedding gifts are typically bestowed to both parties in their newfound celebration, gifts from third parties expressly given to both parties during the marriage are also marital. Here, the express intent of the giver matters. If, for example, the wife’s father or best friend gives her a gift during the marriage, that would be her separate property, but if the father or best friend gives that same gift and says, “Here is for the two of you to enjoy,” the gift would be marital property. 

I have seen situations where parents will put real property in their married child’s exclusive name and gift it. The act of placing the real property in one party’s name is sufficient to demonstrate their intention to gift it to their child as separate property. Conversely, I have seen instances where parents placed real property in both parties’ names (their child and his/her spouse). In these instances, their child cannot meet the burden of proof that the gift was meant exclusively for them at the time of a divorce. They must share that real property with their soon-to-be ex as marital property. 

Inheritances are a form of a third-party gift given at a loved one’s demise. These gifts are separate property. So long as the inheriting party keeps it separate, the law honors this as separate property. Even if some commingling of it has occurred, if the inheriting party can trace it to the inheritance, they often get recoupment.

It is only natural that spouses buy things for each other, and these interspousal gifts are marital property under the law. Think of a husband who buys his wife a necklace for her birthday and a wife who buys her husband a one-of-a-kind watch for their anniversary. Those are both interspousal gifts. Their allocation, upon a divorce, is subject to equitable distribution.

Prenuptial and Postnuptial Agreements can elect to opt out of this, and designate all such gifts as separate property. The prenup/postnup can address whose separate property it is. 

Different people designate the gifts as separate or marital property based on their individual values and sensibilities. It is common for clients to say that interspousal gifts will be the recipient’s separate property, but you have people who also want to set a dollar limit, for example, they may feel that all gifts under $4,000 will be the recipients but anything over $4,000 will revert to the giver. 

Some feel that when a marriage is on the heels of divorce, and one party may have even engaged a divorce attorney, the party trying to salvage the marriage will try re-courting their spouse and lavishing them with expensive gifts to reignite endearment. Their sense of justice tells them that if a divorce happens, that expensive inter-spousal gift should revert to them if they used separate property to buy it, because their spouse was already planning on divorcing them and that last ditch effort should not cause them a greater loss. 

These sorts of nuanced permutations are common. Another example of a permutation would be that all wedding gifts will be one of the party’s separate property, because that party paid for most of the wedding. 

Helping clients feel a sense of security through prenuptial and postnuptial agreements is one of my favorite parts of practicing Matrimonial Law. 

If you would like to learn more about how your gifts and assets are classified in a divorce or to draft a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement tailored to your specific priorities, contact me to schedule a consultation.

Cheryl Stein, Esq.
The Law and Mediation Offices of Cheryl Stein
745 Fifth Avenue, Suite 500
New York, NY 10151
Phone: (646) 884-2324
E-mail: cheryl@cherylsteinesq.com

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The Right Person

In the hostage deal, the pivotal player was Scholz. 

When selecting a mediator, it’s important to vet them and mindfully choose someone who is the right fit for both parties. 

Different mediators have different styles, and different mediators have different levels of authority and ability to get the parties to the finish line. 

When parties select a mediator that is the wrong fit, and the mediation has no traction, they tend to develop fatigue and wariness of the mediation process and jump ship to litigation rather than searching for a better suited mediator. 

That initial mediator selection is critical.

Mediation Style

Scholz had his own style that was palatable and effective for both sides. 

There are different mediation styles. One is “looping,” which is repeating what the parties say back to them. Looping can be good for couples that are highly cooperative but may be completely ineffective for more contentious mediations rife with friction and distrust. For those, you likely need a more authoritative style.

 Some mediators will do ex-parte meetings – meetings between the mediator and one side only. Some mediators will only meet with parties unless both attorneys are present. Some mediators will not agree to have any attorneys present. Some mediators are flexible. 

Know your mediator’s style in advance and ensure it resonates with you. 

Timing

The prisoner exchange had been in the works for many months, but timing was an important motivator. Scholz’s cooperation felt tenuous to the sides. There was concern that Scholz would no longer be willing to mediate pending the upcoming United States election results. 

Timing can be key in mediation. Often, especially in touch and go mediations, a dispute might be on the table for a while without progress. The parties don’t budge from their positions until an external circumstance promotes their agreement. There’s usually a narrow window of time in which the mediation could get done. Ride that wave!

The Deal

The next aspect is the terms of the deal. 

There has been analysis and op-eds of the prisoner exchange deal discussing the justifications for exchanging purported criminals for innocent civilians. 

Scholz defended the deal by stating that our overall humanity weighs towards doing whatever necessary to free the innocents, even if it was at the cost of releasing criminals and potentially incentivizing further detentions and hostage situations. 

Similarly, a lot of mediations appear asymmetrical, but may still be equitable. 

There’s a difference between a real power imbalance that we are all keenly on the lookout for in our role as mediators where we “represent neither side yet defend both sides,” and just the fact that both sides have different bottom lines and agendas.

For example, there might be a situation where a wife agrees to waive her husband’s pension thereby walking away from sizable assets or accepting much less in child support than she could be entitled, because she’s getting something else in return that’s more important to her. 

In divorce and in high-profile prisoner swaps alike, our overall humanity, hopefully, wins – so long as each party preserves what is most important to them.

For more information, contact us.

Cheryl Stein, Esq.
The Law and Mediation Offices of Cheryl Stein
745 Fifth Avenue, Suite 500
New York, NY 10151
Phone: (646) 884-2324
E-mail: cheryl@cherylsteinesq.com

The post How the Mediated Russian Prisoner Exchange Can Inform Divorce Mediation appeared first on Cheryl Stein, Esq..

In order to help their family thrive, many grandparents financially support their adult children and grandchildren. For example, let’s think about a couple that lives in Manhattan with an income of $350,000 – $400,000 a year. In many places, that would be a decent amount of money. If someone’s living on the Upper West Side, Upper East Side, or SoHo, it’s not nearly enough. In these situations, grandparents often give their children very large sums of money on a routine basis as well as make direct payments towards expenses like the grandchildren’s private school tuition and high-end camp experiences. 

I wrote an article called “Good Samaritan Divorce,” which talks about how the Good Samaritan often gets “punished” in some way. For your convenience, you can read the article here.

What does this have to do with matrimonial law? There are standards and statutes in matrimonial law, and grandparents’ consistent and unwavering financial support can affect the support payments. The general support standards are set forth in “The Child Support Standards Act” and “The Notice of Guideline Maintenance” – advisory guideline statutes for child support and spousal support (aka maintenance and alimony). 

The golden rule is maintaining the standard of living.

At the outset of a divorce case, both sides are required to accurately complete, legally acknowledge, and file with the courts a comprehensive document called a Statement of Net Worth, which sets forth the standard of living. 

The standard of living analysis is the most critical and guiding factor in negotiating support and arriving at a final agreed upon amount. The system wants children’s material lives to remain intact. The system wants the lower income earning spouse to have a window of time when they are getting support from their higher earner ex to give them a cushion and bridge towards being more self-supporting. 

I’ve had many cases where grandparents steadily gave money to their children’s family throughout the marriage to subsidize housing, car payments, parking, vacations, and tuition – like a weekly or monthly allowance, but for adults.

If the couple divorces, the idea of imputation comes into play.

Imputation: The assignment of a value to something by inference from the value of the products or processes to which it contributes.

Let’s say it was the husband’s father that helped support the family, the wife is going to want to come after that additional money, even though it doesn’t show in the husband’s W-2 or tax returns – that’s the inference.

Some grandparents feel like imputation codifies an agreement that would have happened anyway. Other grandparents react differently and chafe at the idea of being required to do anything. They also don’t want to be passengers on the roller coaster of their child’s divorce. 

In many instances, grandparents enter into promissory notes with their child for some or all of the funds they give – thereby making their child their debtor. They are trying to ensure that the monies are legally recorded as debts and not gifts or supplemental income. This is done to shield both the grandparent and their child in the event of a divorce. Both the grandparent and child should, however, consult with a qualified attorney when navigating this strategy. 

Understanding imputations and standard of living analyses takes a skilled matrimonial attorney – and the more experience they have, the better. Contact me at The Law & Mediation Office of Cheryl Stein to schedule a consultation.

Cheryl Stein, Esq.
The Law and Mediation Offices of Cheryl Stein
745 Fifth Avenue, Suite 500
New York, NY 10151
Phone: (646) 884-2324
E-mail: cheryl@cherylsteinesq.com

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If divorcing in a chaotic wild west style is on one end of the spectrum and divorcing like you’re having a congenial kumbaya and séance is on the other end of the spectrum, “Nesting” is the kumbaya séance. 

Nesting is a custody arrangement in which each parent is in the marital residence with the children, exclusive of the other parent, during his or her designated parenting time. 

During your parenting time, you’re with the children in the marital residence and the other parent goes to another residence – typically a “crash pad” apartment – close to the marital residence that both parents share in alternating fashion during their “off parenting” time. You then go to that other shared apartment when your ex comes back to the marital residence during his or her designated parenting time. 

By alternating which parent is in the marital residence, the children stay put in the marital residence “nest” they are accustomed to rather than going back and forth between both parent’s homes. 

While many nesting situations are 50/50 parenting time splits, it is fluid, and certainly not all are. Some have other parenting time splits, where one parent is clearly the primary “on parent.” 

Parents who choose nesting tend to be very concerned with the impact their separation will have on their children in what is typically demonstrated in self-sacrificial ways. It’s like they are trying to follow a code of rules towards executing as neat and seamless a separation and divorce as humanly possible, even if it will make them more uncomfortable. 

For example, the shared crash pad is typically a bare bones impersonal space where they are careful not to leave personal belongings that their ex could find, because while sharing it, they are divorcing for a reason after all, and want a semblance of privacy from their ex. Further, they are alternating to shield their children from having to do so, because moving physical spaces often is inherently an uprooted way of living. 

Nesting requires a high level of collaboration and cooperation between the parents. 

Litigating parties or parties whose only language and discourse is that of hostility are not candidates for a nesting arrangement. I have yet to have a case where one of my litigating clients was nesting. I would be curious if such a case exists and how it was pulled off.

Nesting is very attractive in the beginning to many couples who come to me for mediation and collaborative divorce before they have a firm footing and understanding of what their post-divorce family will look like. 

They want to nest as a transitional bridge for a one to two-year period to “safely” get the family to the other side – the post-divorce splintered family still trying to salvage whatever wholeness they can project to and for the kids.

It is often an idealistic aspiration. As the parties nest for several months and the separation terms come into clearer focus, the initial enthusiasm for nesting typically starts to fizzle, and most couples end up doing it for a shorter duration than they initially thought they would.

It is a testament that separation and divorce is a process and for those who have a good enough relationship with their ex to have the luxury to keep an open mind and try things, it can be a fluid process, where both parties mutually decide which avenues “fit” them individually and the kids, as they are going through it.

To learn more about nesting and whether it is the right decision for you, contact us at The Law & Mediation Offices of Cheryl Stein.

Cheryl Stein, Esq.
The Law and Mediation Offices of Cheryl Stein
745 Fifth Avenue, Suite 500
New York, NY 10151
Phone: (646) 884-2324
E-mail: cheryl@cherylsteinesq.com

The post Softening the Blow to Children Amid Divorce appeared first on Cheryl Stein, Esq..

The legal community focuses heavily on the topic of domestic violence with continuing legal education seminars and pro bono clinics. There is even a specialized court called the IDV court (integrated domestic violence), where the family law cases that have alleged elements of domestic violence are adjudicated.

Abuse comes in many forms – emotional, physical, sexual, and financial. Courts take abuse into consideration and use it as a factor in equitable distribution and spousal support, often increasing the amount of money an abused party will get. So, there is monetary compensation for it.

There is a case J.N v. T.N., in which the abuse was found to be so grave, the court awarded the abused party 85% of the marital assets. The case can be found here: https://law.justia.com/cases/new-york/other-courts/2022/2022-ny-slip-op-22310.html. See also, DRL Section 236(B)(5)(d)(14), which can be found here: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/DOM/236.

Abuse is also an obvious factor in custody determinations, as logically, children should have measured and protected engagements with an abusive parent. Trouble comes, however, when one party exaggerates or fabricates allegations of abuse to gain monetary and custodial advantages. The irony being that such a party abuses the abuse claim as a punitive and self-enriching weapon.

For example, conjure the not uncommon case of a wife calling the police on her husband, purely as a child custody tactic. In doing so, she thinks she can get the upper hand by forcing the creation of a police record for her husband – all without thinking of the implications. The wife here is so blinded by her personal ambition of gaining full custody that she fails to see the bigger picture – that her husband would get fired if there was any hint of an abuse allegation in his private life. Whether or not the allegation was true, the allegation’s mere existence was a glaring indelible black mark against him. What she thought would help her in her custody case turned out to be a very silly move for the financials. Since her ex is now unemployed and virtually unemployable at the level of income he was making at a top bank, she is limited in the support she can get. Moreover, because the court felt her call to the police was disingenuous, she ended up being penalized on the custody front.

Everything done in divorce has a cost-benefit analysis. As highlighted above, when vindictive parties are too myopic in their strategy, they end up losing on multiple fronts.

One of the consequences of the victimhood claim is that it often keeps very unhappily married couples married.

I have seen many situations where a theme of the marriage is – “You are the reason for all my unhappiness and misery, and if we get divorced, I will make your life a living hell.”

The party being blamed chooses to stay in the marriage because they view this as a real threat. Despite their misery, it is a misery they know and have lived with for years, which to them, beats the unknown behemoth of misery their spouse vows to ascend on them if the parties divorce.

I often get postnuptial agreement inquiries from this category of married couples.

To learn more about how genuine and fabricated abuse allegations can impact marriage and divorce, contact The Law & Mediation Offices of Cheryl Stein.

Cheryl Stein, Esq.
The Law and Mediation Offices of Cheryl Stein
745 Fifth Avenue, Suite 500
New York, NY 10151
Phone: (646) 884-2324
E-mail: cheryl@cherylsteinesq.com

The post Victimhood Has Currency appeared first on Cheryl Stein, Esq..

Usually, dynamics like these involve two highly skilled and highly successful professionals. For example:

A couple was running a medical practice together, and it just worked out that one of them drummed up a lot more business. Projects were dominated by that spouse, and patients asked for them, specifically. 

While married, the couple kept the profit distribution for the business at 50/50. It’s a great business with great clients, so they want it to continue. As part of the settlement, they agreed to change the profit model of the business to account for who brings in more dollars. 

When divorcing spouses are business partners, they may end up hoarding business relationships, just as we see when parties to a divorce become territorial with their mutual friends.    

Another common dynamic I see in all types of high achievers, whether they work for themselves or someone else, is that both partners work hard during the week — but one of them really prefers to do nothing on the weekends. Their spouse is someone who takes every pottery class, goes to every wine tasting, and learns every language. That, too, will plant a seed for some type of inequality of effort. To be clear, there are some situations where two people like that can coexist if there is one that doesn’t mind doing things on their own. 

I’m often very inspired by my clients and my cases. I see my clients go through tremendous grief, stuck in a relationship that’s supposed to be loving, yet feeling like they’re constantly competing. You wish that — somehow in their adult life — they can manage to overcome that and reach a happier place within themselves. It’s rewarding when they start dating other people and see first-hand that there are much more peaceful individuals out there. 

Cheryl Stein, Esq.
The Law and Mediation Offices of Cheryl Stein
745 Fifth Avenue, Suite 500
New York, NY 10151
Phone: (646) 884-2324
E-mail: cheryl@cherylsteinesq.com

The post Spouse or Competitor appeared first on Cheryl Stein, Esq..

There are a wide variety of strategies that can be used to, for lack of a better term, tell your ex to shut up. Specific legal remedies that can be put in place are: 

•Confidentiality Clauses/Non-Disclosure Agreements: A party can negotiate confidentiality or privacy clauses. Unfortunately, these Agreements are very difficult to enforce and not worth the paper it’s written on. It makes people feel better to include these clauses, but it’s important not to be delusional about their efficacy. 

•Orders of Protection: People do sometimes try to go for the jugular, which in today’s world is bad-mouthing your ex to their employers and coworkers. When that happens, it is a direct cause and reason to go straight for an order of protection to shut the person down. Judges are usually sympathetic to the person who is being harassed, especially since the courts want people employed. 

•Litigation: Johnny Depp’s defamation suit against Amber Heard was an outlier in the world of divorce. Most people do not want to litigate for various reasons, most commonly to avoid airing out their laundry for their employer or general network to potentially see — but sometimes bringing a suit is the right solution to the problem at hand. 

There’s often trepidation among divorcing people around using all the tools in their arsenal. They worry that doing so will exacerbate the situation. For example, if someone works at a job that requires a security clearance, they may be afraid that something like an order of protection will appear as a black mark and flag them from clearing. 

Instead, a lot of people choose the status quo and, essentially, suffer in silence. 

It’s important to keep in mind that the courts, as we know, are part of the government. The government is always afraid of people becoming a ward of the state. They want people employed and fully functioning, and they take this idea of playing around with another person’s employability very seriously. The legal system is capable of helping you — if you have good representation and know which cards to play.

Cheryl Stein, Esq.
The Law and Mediation Offices of Cheryl Stein
745 Fifth Avenue, Suite 500
New York, NY 10151
Phone: (646) 884-2324
E-mail: cheryl@cherylsteinesq.com

The post Remedies for a Blabbing Spouse appeared first on Cheryl Stein, Esq..

One of the unique aspects of a marital relationship is that each spouse knows things about the other that no one else does. When vulnerabilities that are exposed in the times of greatest intimacy and closeness are used against someone, they may feel a loss of the trust that created the whole reason for marriage.

Unfortunately, divorce is problematic in its own way. It often gets used as a bombshell when talking to neighbors, and this can create feelings of tremendous isolation for the other person. I’ve seen people go to bed one night with a whole network of friends, and wake up blocked by all of them, across multiple platforms. 

Sometimes, mutual friends can actually be great facilitators during the process of mediating a divorce, as a sort of in-between. Other times, friends are caught in the middle and used as sounding boards to air out the negative feelings of whichever spouse they are with at the moment. 

One thing that few people realize is that when your ex bad-mouths you, they often reveal their own negative character traits instead of yours. Within the work environment, the gossiper is the one that is most at risk, because nobody really wants to hear that often sensationalized, quasi-true, shameful anecdote about their co-worker’s ex, especially if they are a substantive person themselves; it makes us cringe. Moreover, at work, superiors start to think their blabbermouth divorcing underling is using time and energy they should be channeling into their job to conduct glorified group therapy sessions, and consequently, they start scrutinizing their job performance more. I often say, “Chances are it’s more negatively impacting your spouse that they’re blabbing about you than it’s affecting you.”

That said, people are often still blocked from their regular friends and support systems. Across the board, I have seen people experience trouble functioning in the midst of a mass ghosting led by their soon-to-be ex-spouse. 

Ultimately, the larger world is full of people who do have an element of common sense. If they feel they know you, and have a decent rapport with you, most people will be able to navigate the gossip. 

In my next post, I’ll talk about the measures you can take, like confidentiality and NDA clauses, to protect yourself in an agreement.

Cheryl Stein, Esq.
The Law and Mediation Offices of Cheryl Stein
745 Fifth Avenue, Suite 500
New York, NY 10151
Phone: (646) 884-2324
E-mail: cheryl@cherylsteinesq.com

The post When Your Ex Is Blabbing About You…Ruining Your Reputation appeared first on Cheryl Stein, Esq..

While each situation is different, in my practice, divorces where one spouse is gay tend to be more amicable as an overall generalization, with there being some highly contentious ones every now and again. There’s oftentimes already a deep attachment and an understanding in place that they were never going to have a conventional marriage. They created a different kind of life together, and now they have to untangle it. 

That mutual respect is why so many couples like this are more inclined to mediate their divorces. In many of my cases, the person who is not gay is attached to the one that is, and the person that is gay usually does not want to be harsh. I have also had experiences where the couple tries initially to mediate, or resolve the situation amicably, and they end up litigating. That can happen for a number of reasons, including the non-adversarial setting of mediation, which has been known to make financial manipulation more likely to occur. 

Within the various religions, one party being gay may present seemingly unsolvable problems in a divorce. Oftentimes, religions bring with them a culture that involves every member of a multi-generational family. Some religious communities have their own systems of dealing with marriages and divorces. Information that is private in the secular world is everyone’s business in small communities. Because of that, couples may work out an agreement in which they are divorced in everything but name — unless the parties are completely willing to be open and potentially jeopardize some of the relationships with their family members, including parents, siblings, uncles still moored in more traditional and less accepting dogmas.

In many of these cases, the non-gay spouse did have suspicions over the years that their spouse might be gay. A lot of times, it was chalked up to depression, the gay spouse exhibiting behaviors such as being withdrawn, detached, and lack of interest in sexual encounters with their spouse. The reality is the gay spouse is often depressed if they feel trapped in a marriage with someone of the “wrong” sex who they lack sexual interest in and are often conflicted about how to handle their situation — do they stay out of a sense of loyalty to their family or do they go out of a sense of loyalty to their true innate nature. So, for many, getting that divorce is important to their continuing mental health.

To get started, contact me.

Cheryl Stein, Esq.
The Law and Mediation Offices of Cheryl Stein
745 Fifth Avenue, Suite 500
New York, NY 10151
Phone: (646) 884-2324
E-mail: cheryl@cherylsteinesq.com

The post When Your Spouse Is Gay appeared first on Cheryl Stein, Esq..

In matrimonial and family law, there are no jury trials. The judge is the audience; the one and only who needs to be persuaded. Like the rest of us, that judge is human and may get up on the wrong side of the bed on different days, making what might seem like inconsistent rulings. This can feel arbitrary to divorcing parties on the receiving end, who are already being doled generous helpings of uncertainty in the shifting landscape of their lives. 

Purportedly, the judge only wants to get at the truth — to make the best decision for all sides based on the facts. “Purportedly” being the appropriate word here with so much controversy often surrounding individual judge’s motives, styles, and decisions by various constituents of the peanut gallery comprised of the matrimonial law professional inbreeds, such as attorneys, other members of the bar, and divorcing parties passing through the system. 

Be clear, precise and tell the judge exactly what you want upfront. This is not a game of manipulation or reverse psychology, where you say one thing but really mean and want the opposite. Intertwine your specific story with the relevant case law. It’s especially helpful to come armed with recent decisions that that particular judge made on a similar case. If you find yourself being long-winded with a judge, you’re probably losing them. 

Have you ever heard the expression, “Too much story!” That person that may or may not have interesting and poignant anecdotes to share, you’d never know, because, by the time they get to the point and deliver the punchline, they’ve lost you in a sea of extraneous words. Rule number 1, when in front of your judge, don’t be that person. Don’t confuse this with avoiding telling your story altogether. One of the most influential members of the NY Bar used to tell attorneys time and again, “I need to hear the story; that is what family law is; tell me this family’s story.” Your task becomes being an adroit and effective story-teller, conveying the relevant facts and circumstances. 

As important as it is to know your judge and how the presentation of your case will resonate with them, your entire strategy cannot hinge on playing to one judge’s likes and dislikes. Judges often change and swap out cases. For example, your attorney might be catering to one particular judge, and then when it comes time to do the support, the judge says, “I’m sending this down to a magistrate to decide.” Hopefully, your attorney had not been putting all of their eggs in that one basket. 

The case has to be solid enough to present in front of any judge. To that end, it’s important to keep a very clear paper trail and track record of what’s going on, so that a potential new judge will be able to pick up the case seamlessly.

Sometimes more than one judge works on a case at the same time. A divorce case that involves Child Protective Services may be adjudicated in both Family Court and Supreme Court. Oftentimes cases like these will get condensed to avoid the left hand from not knowing what the right hand is doing. 

Another factor that most attorneys look at is where the judge is in their career. They might have developed different leanings based on what their own immediate responsibilities are, what their culture is, what their peers have been doing, and what institutions they’re involved with at the time.

The attorney you hire should be flexible, able to adapt within their strategy very quickly when they’re building a case; even though they are doing their due diligence to tailor the case to your judge, they really have to create a consistently irrefutable fact set.

Along the same lines as knowing your judge is knowing your courthouse. I sometimes get calls from people in Westchester or Upstate New York, for example. I advise them that a Westchester litigation case is, most often, best represented by a Westchester attorney who has spent significant time in the county courts. You want an attorney whom the judges are very familiar with and are certain will keep to their word because of their prior experiences working together.

Sometimes people don’t have all the information they need, or they’re only listening to a certain version of the narrative that is skewed — often referred to as, “living in a bubble.” They don’t necessarily have information presented to them in an unbiased way in order to make decisions based on logic. 

We see with political discussions that neighbors and friends can look at the same set of facts and come to viewpoints that are polar opposites of each other. We just had a presidential election, and with how divided the country was, this couldn’t have been more clear. Similarly, this happens all the time in divorce. People look at the exact same fact set and arrive at completely different conclusions. It’s only by understanding this inherent reality that attorneys can offer a truly holistic representation for their divorcing clients. For more information on telling the story of your divorce, backing it up with unbiased, concrete facts, and interlacing it with recent case law trends — contact me. 

Cheryl Stein, Esq.
The Law and Mediation Offices of Cheryl Stein
745 Fifth Avenue, Suite 500
New York, NY 10151
Phone: (646) 884-2324
E-mail: cheryl@cherylsteinesq.com

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