How a Divorce Mediator Turns Conflict Into Clarity

So having the attorney education and the experience

“doing New York, Montreal, Illinois, and family law,”

I could explain how New York law works. What the directions look like, what the calculated results would look like, and in my experience, what judges facing similar fact patterns have done before. So I say, if that's helpful for you,

and you can't resolve this here, you're going to have to go to a core. So I can help them get unstuck by telling them the reality of what might happen and work, of course, and educating them on how the law works in New York.

Deborah Whitson is the founder and managing attorney of Whitson Law, PLLC, a New York family law firm focused on divorce, custody, mediation, and collaborative law. With more than 30 years of legal experience, including work as a special victim's prosecutor,

Deborah has built her practice around helping families navigate difficult transitions with less conflict and more control. I've had a number of radiation couples reconcile. They say, well, now that you've taught us how to effectively communicate, we actually leave the mediation session and we go home,

and we talk through things, and we're like, maybe we can make this work. So I've seen people that come and they say, "My fiance and I did an AI pre-nubsular agreement where you review it." And though I would not have anybody go sign one of those things.

There's very technical things in New York State that need to be in marital agreements and pre-marital agreements, and post-nubsular agreements.

So AI doesn't always get that part right.

So they might think they have an agreement. They sign it, and then when they get divorced later. The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. It's sensational to open. Chicago is the way you say, Paul.

It's revocers, not on the planet. You can live your dream. Hey, welcome back everyone to another episode of Living Your Legacy Podcast. I'm your host again, Jay Slangen, and we got a special person here. Found America's top lawyers, and yeah, please introduce yourself.

“And what kind of lawyer are you, where you from also?”

Hi, Jay. Yeah. Hi, I'm Jemper Whittson. I am an attorney and mediator and collaborative attorney as well. The founder of Whittson Law, and mediated online solutions. We practice law from Albany up to the Canadian border in New York State, and practice mediation everywhere in the world.

So you're up in Albany? We have five offices from Albany to Platsburg, and everywhere in between Saratoga Springs, locations, yeah. So it must be nice down here in Miami, but it's humid. It's summer is the best time to be in the Adirondock Park of New York State,

because everything besides summer is winter. So Miami is hot, compared to Adirondock summers,

but it's always great to be in Miami, it's a very fun vibrant.

I got to say, you got to prepare for the humidity and the hair, right? When you're coming down to the studios, the humidity does have an impact on the hair and the poofiness, so. Yeah, my hair is used to living in the mountains with no humidity, so it's a little bit challenging here today.

So, so mediation, yeah. So you're getting people to be in the room, right?

“Or sit down at a table and be in separate rooms, right?”

Tell us about mediation. Okay, so first, I guess I should say that the law firm and the mediation is all focused on divorce, family law, custody, pre-naps, post-naps, and stuff. And so in that context, right, we're just doing those kinds of mediation.

Mediation can take a couple of formats. Some people want to sit around a table together and they're able to do that without shooting knives out of their eyes at each other. The pandemic had a lot of downsides, but one of the absides is everybody got used to virtual meetings.

So we can mediate with anybody around the globe. And I can be anywhere I want to be around the globe when I'm doing that. And that modality works really well for a lot of people. I think the people are more old school and have quite adapted to video conferencing and remote communications,

like to sit around the table. So on the spectrum of, right, this divorce mediation, custody battles, and all that are people more kind of trying to sort things out, or people more at their thrills. I would say that people who are inclined to consider mediation

are even slightly of not terrifically more inclined to be cooperative and to compromise, where they can compromise or that sacrificing important values and things like that.

relationships, and sometimes maybe they've tried accessing the courts,

“and they realize that if they're going to be high conflicts against each other,”

and court, getting successful outcomes without spending a ton of money becomes a problem. And judges get frustrated with high conflict litigants. And so sometimes they both get a little chastised or spanked legally by the judge for their hostility. So I'm specifically trained also in high conflict mediation and co-parenting mediation.

And sometimes co-parenting relationships are where people really find the friction, the rest of their divorce separates them out financially from each other, disentangles them, but kids keep them entangled for ever, really. So what do your thoughts on marriage these days?

Because you get all the stories, right?

You see what, I guess what hasn't worked, right? I mean, it's kind of sad to see, you know, what was once, I love you. Marriage, you know, you think this is the one. We all still have that kind of thought. This is the one, marriages forever.

And then what is it? 60% now, marriages and divorce? When you measure it, because they were from 50 to 60, sure, yeah. Those aren't good odds, right? So what's your thoughts?

When you think about those statistics that you've just cited, which are fairly accurate,

and you think about how many people are choosing not to marry and their co-havening, that if you're inching towards 60% divorce rate with a smaller pool of married people, those people are not getting married, that's alarming. So what do I think personally? I don't even thought about that.

When we think personally about marriage, well, I had one short marriage where my then husband was unable to be monogamous, and that was painful. And so even that, I was, we were married like two years, no children. I had, in my head, the happily ever after. I had a play in a vision of what my life was going to look like, you know, 50 years into a marriage.

And it was really sad. Now you've transitioned into helping people get their happily ever after. After, you know, the happily ever after didn't really work out. You know, it's a new kind of path, right?

“Like a path where they didn't think that road would even exist, right?”

But you're still trying to get them to the happily ever after. After. Yeah, I think that people are looking for a new happiness. And for some people, that may be another relationship with no marriage next time around. Other people believe in the, you know, the doctrine of marriage and the legality of it.

So there's a lot of benefits legally to having a marriage versus domestic partnership. So my success story was I spent after my divorce, I don't know, three months, crying a lot. And then picked myself up by my bootstraps and started looking at what could I do better and do differently in a new relationship to avoid my blind spots in my marriage that led me to not see what leader when I learned that this was going on.

It was fairly obvious if I had just opened my eyes, but also to look inside and really assess what do I want out of my next relationship and how can I achieve what I want in a relationship? So I did several years of therapy and that's not everybody's gig, but I really worked for me. And I'm now 36 years into my next relationship. We live together for five, tested out, make sure.

And we've been married 31 years now. And so I believe in marriage, I believe in relationships that work. And when they work and they're healthy, that's great. When relationships are fraught with, you know, see people unfortunately with their domestic violence or I mean, all forms of domestic violence, which might be financial, control and abuse,

just the exercise of power and control and the relationship it might not mean following somebody, but when those relationships aren't healthy, then in my opinion it's a good thing that they end. And if their children witnessing that, it's an even better thing that children don't grow learning that that's what a marriage or a relationship looks like. Yeah. So sometimes it's the right thing to get out of a relationship and take a fresh look.

Yeah, and we had a recent guest here who was a counselor, but specifically on the niche of infernality and not just the woman, but it could be the man or it could be the couple.

“And she said the key to fixing that is kind of just working on the individual, having them focus”

on themselves, kind of rediscovering themselves. And that can sometimes rekindle the relationship,

right, it's more than that, right? So she kind of delves deeper into that and kind of just fixes

the individuals, right? So is that kind of with your mediation? Is it kind of figuring out what the individuals want, right? And kind of how they can come together, right? So we're obviously not doing relationship therapy, but I do a lot of communication and science training. So there are the way I mediate is there are ground rules that the parties contractually agree to. So no talking over each other, no name calling, don't talk about the past it. We're talking about today in the future because

we can't change the past. No blame. You know, it's got to be a safe space where everybody feels heard. Yeah. And then while I'm getting to know the communication styles of the couples that I'm mediating with, I pick up on things. I'm going to have been trained to listen for things. I pick up on things that may cause me to put other ground rules and effect rate then and there. But I also

“give them tips. So if you want to comment tip is somebody says, I want to get the marital home”

as part of the divorce settlement because I can't for a second think of your slutty new girlfriend

sleeping in my bedroom, right? So I say, make your proposal without the justification because in my example, that justification was very inflammatory. And what is that likely to do to the listener? Right? And what do you mean, you know, my new girlfriend is in slutty, blah blah blah. So it takes the conversation in a very unproductive direction. So I say make a proposal on facts and stop talking and let the other person respond. So I would like to get the marital house as part of my settlement

package. Okay, party across the table, what do you say to that? How would you feel? That's like saying, all right, chill out, right? And it's like, when you tell someone it's chill, it's like, but yeah, I feel like, okay, X-ray on the slut's day, right? But yeah, so have you ever heard of a guy, right? We're on a podcast, right? And there's a podcast so that he's a divorce lawyer,

“New York City, I think his name is James Sexton. The name sounds familiar, but I'm not sure of”

his name or his banter house. Yeah, you got to check him out. He's just got a very interesting way to talk about, you know, divorce, he's a divorce lawyer in New York City that's handled, you know, massive cases. And just the way that he talks about it. And he now, he's got this unique kind of perspective on it's also in love and contracts. And he managed right on from a contractual kind of point of view. But yeah, check it out. Interesting dude, funny guy, right?

And he's kind of, you know, always on the podcast rounds, you know, so he's out there written books

of whatever, you know. But yeah, I mean, what is, is there like a number one kind of thing that just takes mediation and just makes it fall apart? I mean, you're in high conflict, divorce mediation, right? So that just means that these people are just at each other's throats, right? They can't, they can't mediate, right? So, but they're trying to get the kids, they're trying to get the house,

“they're trying to get everything, right? And just can you talk to us a little more about that?”

The ground rules are designed to sort of whatever the emotions are. It's impossible, right? The emotions are perhaps going to always be there, but the behaviors can be monitored engaged. So there's certain situations where they're so high come to like that I will say, let's do written proposals. They're going to come through me and I'm going to take out all of the inflammatory language and the justification language. You were so terrible to me that I deserve this,

right? That sort of stuff. I'll exercise that out. And then I will streamline the modified proposal language, improve, get it approval by the party who is proposal is. And then I will share that proposal with the other side and I'll do the same back and forth. So sometimes just not limiting real-time verbal communication or having them be on video. So I can actually mute a video sound if I need to. And it just puts that space and it's obviously a much more neutral communication format

than being sitting as close as we are perhaps. Absolutely. Yeah. Even when you're in two separate rooms, right? When the media is walking between rooms, they're kind of looking through the crack with the door opens. Yeah. That motherfucker, right? You can feel the blood pressure and the temperature is rising when things are starting to get off the rails a little bit and your interest and then it's a lot easier to be calm and detached from the video. Well, you eventually get there.

well, now that you've taught us how to effectively communicate, we actually leave the mediation session and we go home and we talk through things and we're like, maybe we can make this work. So yeah, that's a happy, I've lost a client. That's a good idea. It's been a really good outcome. That's your testimonial. Yeah. Mediation's so good. The marriage gets back together.

“Yeah. So I've had some people, I think I've had two that went to, they said,”

we're going to get lawyers and fight about this stuff and I was like, well, that's unfortunate, but you have free will for yourself. Yeah. That's fine. And then came back and said, oh, the whole experience with the lawyers just made it worse. So we're going to take a stab at it and there was a break of time in there. So we took about three and a half years from the first time that they met with me. They left mediation for a while. Got lawyers came back and then at

one point, it looked like it was blowing up and they're like, maybe we just need to give up on this. And I convinced them to give one more try and we got it over the finish line. So, but I don't know, I've had one where couple had an infant and the mom wanted to move from New York State to Florida and the dead wasn't co relocating and there was just no compromise to be had there. He was not going to live

a whole east coast away from his newborn and she was bound to determine to try to go. But ended up she stayed in New York and they worked it out and she just couldn't relocate. And is there ever a time when you kind of, because your role is to mediate, right? But it's your time like you're just like, oh my god, this, this guy's an asshole. You know,

“like, and you have to be like, he's trying to be like, all right, I mean, we're going to”

freaking, you know, say no to this. So I, I know that you, you're not, right? But kind of like, what's going through your head? So I have to conduct myself at all times with scrupulous new charities. So I need their parties, private attorney, what I'm doing. Newtuality. That's a,

it's a term that I would never say. Yeah, nobody's important for trust. Yeah, no, yes. So if

party one thinks I'm having sidebar conversations with them or private emails or I'm taking phone calls from them. Oh, yeah, there is a nowhere. So when they sign the contract to engage in mediation with me, everything is three way. We were, they're sitting together. We're on a three-way call or we're on a three-way email. Yeah. So it's maintaining that neutrality. Do I have my own personal thoughts and opinions about people's positions and how reasonable or appropriate they are,

of course I do. Yeah. I, I wear my neutral media face at all times. But, you know, it also must be so interesting. I mean, the stories that you kind of hear because you are the referee, well, not the referee, but just the listener of, man, these two stories. How are they going to, how's this, how's this story going to end? Yeah. And sometimes we're, I can be affected because not every mediator has to be an attorney. So having the attorney education and the experience

doing New York, Montreal, New York, family law, I can tell them if they, let's just say the wife is stuck on, I want a whole lot of alimony for a whole long time, right? And that has been just like, I'll give a little bit of alimony for a little bit of time, but they're really far apart. I could explain how New York law works. What the directions look like, what the calculated results would look like, and in my experience, what judges facing similar fact patterns have done before.

So I say, if that's helpful for you, and you can't resolve this here, you're going to have to

go to a court, and here's what you could be expecting to have, and I can't predict the future with

100% certainty, but this gives you some basis. That may be enough of them because maybe the wife sees in my explanation, so I'm not entitled to 30 years of alimony. I may be entitled to 10. Or I want twice as much alimony as no Deborah has explained is typical based on our respective incomes or something. So I can help them get unstuck by telling them the reality of what might happen in court. Of course. And educating them on how the law works in New York.

And I'm sure the reality is, you know, and you can't all want to take this guy, and I want 30 years, you know, actually, let's take a breath, I know. Let's bring you back down, and let me tell

“you how it is. So that kind of gives them, you know, that playing field, all right?”

Yeah. And everybody going through a breakup has well-meaning friends and relatives that know Jack shit about how the law really works with respect to, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But they're giving them, you know, they're in the ear of the, the friend or family member. So they come in with all these, well, my sister-in-law said, I should get the house and the pension and the kids and whatever, okay, well, your sister-in-law doesn't know what she's talking about, but okay, you know, so I have to

be mindful of, you know, listen to the experts, I always invite my mediation clients to go get

refer them. So I welcome lawyers who know family and matrimony all along, but I can say,

“trying to remember your friends and family mean well, but they don't, yeah, they don't know the”

honest situation of like, you know, you know, in Harry Potter, you've got the wizards, and then you've got the muggles, right? Then the muggles are the ones that don't have magic, right? And so these like outside, you know, family members that don't know jack shit about, right? Let's say like magic, right? It's like, okay, you're a muggle. This is the magic world of, you know, we have to deal with laws and stuff. So, yeah, I mean, even with, I use it with entrepreneurship, also, you know, it's like,

okay, you don't stay on your lane, you know? I'm gonna use that analogy before you're copyrighted. Yeah, that's very good. But I asked everyone, what are you most excited about? I'm most excited about the fact that I've been trying to message to the universe, you know, people living in the universe, but to prospective clients and also professionals who work in the matrimony all in family law, system judges included to endorse, support, recommend,

mediation or collaborative divorce, which is slightly more powerful, resource intensive

method for more complex cases. But New York is one of a few states that doesn't have a

“mandatory diversion to mediation. You must give it the college try, and if it doesn't work”

it's come back and have a judge decide your case. Many, many states have that diversion, and New York state as progressive as it is as a state has not endorsed that for reasons that are mysterious to me, that I'm going to keep fighting until New York makes that a practice. Yeah, sure. That's like, I was in Italy. In Italy, you have to have mandatory mediation first before it goes to the court. But you're saying New York, it can go straight to the courts.

No, and more and more judges are suggesting it. I'm going to adjourn this case. I want the

parties to go engage in mediation. I think a lot of time. A lot of money. I'm going to order they go to the Tribulation. And if I can't be completely 100% successful in resolving everything the parties need to have to get a divorce signed by a judge, I'll say great. We solved nine out of

“ten issues that you need to address. And so now go to court and let the judge decide just one.”

But Memorialized, a partial, marital separation and settlement agreement with the nine you did solve here today. Perfect sense. So it streamlines what they have to fight about in a court or let a judge make a decision on every half. Well, how do people find you? So I can be found. My law firm is WhitsinLawFirm.com. That's WHIT. So nfirm.com. My mediation company is mediated online solutions.com. And both of those businesses are across all socials linked in

Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook. Right. You are out there. You are doing X. We're on X too. Well, thank you so much for joining us. I think the world of law and mediators and all that is just so interesting because it's I've been getting insight into the wizard world. And honestly, like, you know, kind of once you start to know everything. Oh, what about AI real quick? Because AI and law is wow. Okay. Yeah. So lawyers have to be really, really careful to not run a

fall of ethical obligations to check case citations in our research. People have been sanctioned and disciplined for that lawyer's have been sanctioned and disciplined. We have to be hyper worried about using open AI platforms with client information. Right. And divorce law, I'm getting social security numbers to x returns bank account numbers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. numbers. It's put that into an AI engine. So those are big ethical no-knows for marketing

and refining our intake systems and our internal policies and procedures. And document drafting as long as we don't have client specific information in the document. We plug it in after we have what about like, you know, clients that are kind of, you know, they're entering mediation and they're just getting to know more. Like, are they coming to you more knowledgeable about things because of AI is giving them a good general base? Yeah. So I find that in the general base that is

often not too far off from accurate. So that's not harmful. Yeah. I would just say, I've seen people that come and they say, my, my fiance and I did an AI pre-nubsular agreement when you review it. And though I would not have anybody go sign one of those things. There's very technical things that New York State that need to be in marital agreements and pre-marital agreements

have an agreement. They sign it and then when they get divorced later, 20 years later, five years

made it or whatever, they realize their pre-nubs, it's not effective. Wow. It is a good foundation to go to the lawyer with, right? You can be. Yeah. Depending on complex and nuanced, your situation is. Yes. If it's garden variety type stuff, you'd probably get a decent draft from AI. It's a brainstormer.

Proceed with caution. I would say a brainstormer, right? And then still work with your lawyers.

“Yeah. It's too important. And you know another area that I really preach to people. Since a lot of”

people aren't marrying, they're just entering into long-term relationships and they're combing the link things. They're buying a house together, taking a mortgage together, they're not marrying. In most states, there are no rules for how to handle those non-marital assets that they both jointly own. Yeah. It's like we have a equitable distribution law in New York. And so co-habitation

“agreements, if you're going to co-mingle your finances at all, so very important so that you”

have to determine your future because you may have no access to a court to resolve those because the court can only divide things among married couples who are getting divorced. Well, thank you

once again for joining us. Thanks, John. And yeah, I hope actually, you're my second guest

in the podcast and the new studios, but it's day number one. So thank you for being my first female guest in my first top lawyer guest and it's been a pleasure to have you on the show. I love this

“studio. It's absolutely stunning and very welcoming. Yeah, you were over in the Barbie room, right?”

And then this is kind of like the whiskey room, I guess. Yeah. But it's only day one. I will have some whiskey in here at some point, maybe. Yeah, it's definitely come back for the whiskey. All right. Thank you. Well, thank you for joining us. And thank you guys for joining us again. And yes, you know, I've been talking to a lot of great lawyers. So America's top lawyers. It's a great place to learn about so many different facets of law. And yeah, thank you for joining us and we'll

hope to see you again. Cheers, everyone.