The Initial Divorce Consultation

In this first segment, Michigan family law and divorce lawyers Henry Gornbein and Alisa Peskin-Shepherd discuss key considerations during the divorce process. In this segment, they discuss the initial divorce consultation, and considerations when trying to decide if you should file for divorce or attempt a reconciliation.

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Henry Gornbein: A client comes to you trying to decide whether or not to file for divorce. What are some of the key issues that you discuss at the initial consultation.

Alisa Peskin-Shepherd: When they're first thinking about whether they should file or not, we generally talk about the relationship, actually whether they've tried to go through marriage counseling, and just what their thoughts are with regard to their assets. It's really a lot about the emotions also involved, and if they have children, how they feel it might affect the children.
There are a lot of things to think about financially, with regard to children and where they will live, so it's really good to start asking the client questions to get them thinking about what the future might hold. And, of course, still starting with have you tried to reconcile; is this still something you really want to do.

Henry Gornbein: I also, and I know you do, encourage people to go into marriage counseling as well for 3 reasons.
1) First reason is to see if there's any chance to of saving the marriage.

2) Second reason, if you can't save the marriage, to at least build a support system as you go through the divorce, if there is a divorce.

3) Third, so you know who are and why you got into the mess in the first place and hopefully you will not repeat your mistakes again and again.

Alisa Peskin-Shepherd: Right. That's a combination really of the marriage counseling and an individual counselor. A lot of the marriage counselors these days are aware of the process of divorce and can they can help the couple if they decide to move forward with divorce to move along more amicably in that regard.