James Piedimonte, P.C.

• promotes communication and cooperation,
  
• allows you to control the decisions that affect your life,
  
• benefits children and others by reducing conflict,
  
• is confidential, avoiding public disclosure of personal
  problems, and
  
• can be completed in less time than litigation, so you can move ahead with your life.

   Separation is sometimes used to give a couple a chance to get a better perspective on their relationship. Mediation can help create a custom-made separation agreement with provisions that meet each partner's needs.  Personal and financial issues are often included in the mediated separation agreement.

   People trying to keep their lives under control during this difficult time can realize great benefits from mediation.  Mediators help families resolve conflicts involving custody, parenting arrangements, child and spousal support, property and debt division.  Mediators help couples separate their spousal role, which is ending, from their parental role, whichiis continuing.  Clients learn to evaluate their present financial condition and to provide for their future financial needs.

   A mediated agreement usually costs less and takes less time because the parties do the negotiating, not the lawyers.  What's more, studies show people are more likely to live up to an agreement they have negotiated, rather than one done for them by others or decided by a judge.  Neither party is likely to feel that advantage has been taken of them--they
both remain in charge of what happens in their lives.  Excerpts from Robert Benjamin, M.S.W., J.D. The Mediation of Business Family and Divorce Conflicts: Practice Forms and Handbook, St. Louis, Missouri 1995.

   James Piedimonte is a member of the Association for Conflict Resolution, a merged organization of Academy of family Mediator's (ARM), Conflict Resolution Education Network (CREnet) and the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution (SPIDR).  He is listed as a qualified mediatior with the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association, Jackson County and Rule 17 list of the Missouri Bar Association neutrals for domestic relations.  He is listed as a family law mediator for the Association of Missouri Mediators and Heartland Mediators Association.