The Choice to Become a Mediator

Welcome to a series of blogs about David Louis, Chicago divorce mediator. Find out why David’s clients consistently praise him for his expertise in both mediation and finance, for his trustworthiness, his compassion, his organizational skills, and his extensive knowledge and professionalism. 
 
In this series hear David: 

• share about his choice to become a professional mediator.
• explain what couples should know about mediation if they are considering that method to handle a divorce.
• review the creative ways he helps his clients prepare for successful mediation.

The Choice to Become a Mediator 
David Louis is a divorce mediator and Certified Divorce Financial AnalystTM who brings compassion, sensitivity, and expertise to a challenging field that serves couples at a critical time in their lives. He shares here his own journey to a second career as a mediator.
 
My background and professional path
I was raised north of New York City and attended college in Albany, the state capital of New York, earning a bachelor's in accounting and a master's in public administration.
 
I worked in the public sector for over 30 years, managing financial operations in state government and doing public service in my community, where seeds of consensus-building among colleagues and dispute resolution were planted. When I turned 50, I started to think about what my next chapter would look like professionally. At that time, I discovered mediation.
 
After training as a mediator, I then volunteered for four years in a community dispute resolution center in Albany. There I worked primarily with parents who either could not agree on scheduling for their children or faced other decisions that needed to be made for their families. In 2010, I decided to take a retirement offer from my employer and start a second career as a professional mediator. I chose to focus my efforts on divorce mediation.
 
The draw to mediation
There were two things that really spoke to me about mediation. The first is that, as a mediator, I am not the one who makes decisions. That is a choice left up to my clients. After being a decision maker for most of my career, I found this to be freeing.
 
Second, I learned that, when I'm working with clients in mediation, we have the opportunity to focus on the future. I see the journey in life as consisting of two roads. There's the road that got us to where we are, and there's the road that leads out of here into the future. What I know about the road from the past is that often we don't agree on what happened. And, for the most part, that road has been built and cannot be changed.
 
Mediation is unique in that it is a future-focused process. In mediation I am looking to help build a bridge from where my clients are now to where they’re going to be in the future––to help them build a road that doesn't exist yet and move forward in planning a healthy and sustainable future for every member of their family.
 
I was informed in choosing mediation as my new profession by my own early experience with divorce and the experience of friends, coworkers, and family members who had been through the process themselves. Most of them used what I would describe as the traditional process. They would engage attorneys, and sometimes this would work out––­but sometimes not so much. Everyone basically told me the same thing––it costs too much, it takes too long, and it adds a lot of stress to your life. Transition, of course, is stressful by nature. However, I discovered that mediation could alleviate much unnecessary stress that the traditional litigation process imposes.
 
What I concluded is that our legal system is not equipped to deal with the human needs of families in transition. When I think about the courts, I think about somebody being right and somebody being wrong, or somebody feeling they won and somebody feeling they lost. Most of my clients are not interested in that dialogue. They are looking to move forward. They are in new territory because divorce is something that they haven't experienced. They're looking for guidance, and they intuit that, with proper help, they can make their own decisions for their next steps.
 
That process makes sense to me, and that is why I chose to become a divorce mediator.
 
Goals I establish as a mediator
When I'm working with clients, I set goals for myself as their mediator.
 
Goal #1 Each person needs to be heard
My first goal is to offer a process where each of my clients has the opportunity to express themselves and be heard––to talk about what's important to them, to talk about why it's important, to focus on what matters within a safe environment with an experienced mediator as a neutral third party.
 
I help clients come to understand each other better than they did before we began to work together.Understanding is not the same as agreement. And yet, it is a foundation upon which agreements can be built.
 
Goal #2 Acknowledge all the relationships in a marriage
My second goal acknowledges that the marriage relationship has many layers. Couples have known each other for longer than they’ve been married, and what they decide to do with their personal relationship going forward will be entirely up to them. That is the first relationship.
 
In mediation, we address other aspects of the relationship as well. Marriage is also an economic partnership, and one of my goals is to guide my clients in how to navigate the changing dynamics of that economic relationship. I bring my clients years of experience and expertise in the realm of finance, in addition to my specific training and accreditation as a Certified Divorce Financial AnalystTM.
 
The third relationship is a lifelong one. If my clients have children, they will remain parents of those children for the rest of their lives. That is a relationship that I honor in this process. I am a parent myself, and I know personally how challenging and rewarding that role is. My goal is to ensure that nothing in the mediation experience will diminish effective co-parenting going forward. I want parents and children to be able to enjoy being a family, even if they are living in two different places in the future.
 
Goal #3 Deal with the challenge of transitioning to two homes
My third goal is to acknowledge a fundamental economic reality of divorce––it is more expensive to live in two homes than it is to live in one. As a Certified Divorce Financial AnalystTM, I carry a toolbox and use those tools as needed by my clients to better understand their financial circumstances, to create an even playing field of financial knowledge and information, and to assist them to be informed about the financial decisions that they are facing. With this groundwork in place, my clients are able to make the best possible choices for their futures.
 
Goal #4 Assist with good decision making
My fourth goal relates to decision making. In this process, neither partner in a marriage should feel that they are being forced into a decision that they don't want to make. Conversely, neither person should feel that they are forcing somebody else to make a decision that they don't want to make. I describe this as mutually acceptable decision making. The choices couples make must work for both of them. The choices they make must be acceptable to each. One person does not get to call the shots in this process.It's a process that will involve both parties, with my assistance as a neutral facilitator.
 
Supply legal information
It is also important that decisions are informed. There are really two essential ingredients to an informed decision. The agreements reached in mediation are generally approved by Judges. However, in cases that are litigated, there are laws that judges must consider when making decisions because the spouses couldn’t agree. I provide legal information so clients can make their decisions with full knowledge relevant to those considerations.
 
Require full financial disclosure
Part of good decision making is also having full financial information available. As already mentioned, marriage on one level is an economic partnership. If my clients were business partners and were going to close their business and decide who is going to walk away with what, they would want a full accounting of all parts of that business, all of its assets, all of its debts, all of its sources of income. And it's no different with the dissolution of a marriage. In mediation, we are unwinding an economic partnership, and in order to do that, we need a process of full financial disclosure, so that both parties are fully aware of all assets, debts, and sources of income. I assist by providing a list of the documents that will be needed to establish that full disclosure.
 
With both financial and legal information, I ensure my clients are well informed in preparation for decisions they make. We acknowledge economic realities, geared toward honoring the family and doing no harm to the prospects of future relationships. And this grows out of a process where each person is involved in a meaningful and robust conversation, where both parties address their plans for the future, and where both have a voice. 
 
This process makes mediation an extremely attractive and effective solution to the challenge of transitioning out of a marriage.