Choose a More Respectful Divorce
We help divorcing and separating clients resolve conflict so they can move forward. Divorce involves restructuring your family and finances. We assist clients reach agreement in their divorce and separation in a respectful and cost-effective manner and where the clients make their own decisions about their futures. Experience shows that divorcing clients make better decisions for themselves than strangers can do, and that reaching common ground can be challenging without professional facilitation, guidance, and assistance. Divorce attorney and mediator J. Mark Weiss provides  facilitation, guidance, and assistance to help you reach consensus. For a consultation, call (206) 622-6707 or email us at info@mark-weiss.com.

A Divorce Court Has Limits in Its Ability to Restructure Families
We do not view our lawyer's job as going to court to try to “win” a divorce, because all too often even the “winner” loses. Courts are simply not well-suited to the task of restructuring families. In divorce court, intimate details of a couple's finances and other matters are presented to a judicial officer who makes life-altering decisions based on arguments made by the divorce lawyers and a limited amount of evidence that the lawyers can present. No one wins and the outcome may not even fit anyone's needs. There are much better ways: instead of turning over their most important decisions to strangers, divorcing and separating couples can make their own decisions and divorce in a manner that better preserves their relationships, dignity, and privacy. By resolving the conflict inherent in divorce, each spouse can move forward with their life. This can be done through Collaborative Divorce and divorce mediation with the assistance of a divorce lawyer who focuses exclusively on helping couples in conflict come to agreement.

Family Law in Addition to Divorce
Besides divorce (dissolution of marriage), we also work with couples in other family law matters, such as legal separations, parentage/paternity, domestic partnership, unmarried couple, and modification of child support and parenting (custody and visitation) matters. We also provide second opinions and assist other attorneys to get difficult cases back on track. We are conveniently located in Seattle, and serve the greater King County area.

A Divorce Settlement Is Better for Couples Who Divorce
When divorcing clients reach resolutions that best suit their values, goals, and needs, the resolutions are not just better but also more durable. We help clients reach divorce resolutions by listening to our clients and helping them identify what is most important to them. We then help our clients create a reality-based divorce settlement that is in alignment with their own priorities, goals, and needs. In our experience, only Collaborative Divorce and interest-based mediation are able to consistently help clients reach that level of divorce resolution.

A Divorce Resolution Helps Protect Your Privacy
Collaborative Law and mediation in divorce are especially well suited for protecting privacy. Instead of placing personal information in a public court record, negotiations in Collaborative Divorce and divorce mediation are  private and confidential. Unlike a court decision, many of the details of your divorce settlement may even remain confidential in Washington by placing them in a contract. In Collaborative Law cases, everyone signs an agreement at the start that all of the divorce discussions will remain confidential. Similarly, in mediation, everyone signs an agreement that the divorce negotiations will remain confidential. No other divorce process offers that degree of privacy protection as an inherent part of the structure from the beginning to end.

A Divorce Resolution Is Better for Children
By helping divorcing parents preserve a working relationship, Collaborative Divorce allows parents to reach better solutions for their children and to build a new and better co-parenting relationship for their future. In our experience, parents rarely work better together after a child custody or visitation fight in court, and the children are often victims of a court battle in their parents' divorce. We all know that children learn from their parents, including lessons drawn from how they observe their parents handling their divorce or separation. Collaborative Divorce is family-focused divorce, and allows the opportunity for parents to work together to build a healthy and cooperative parenting partnership and to model for their children how to best resolve conflict.

Collaborative Divorce and Mediation
We believe that Collaborative Divorce in particular often results in a higher quality outcome with less stress than going to court. Collaborative Divorce is a process that is optimized to help couples reach well-informed agreements with full legal support from trained attorneys in a manner that helps preserve relationships. With skilled help and support, divorcing couples are usually able to reach their own resolutions in a manner that is right for them. The divorcing couple's agreements are placed into legally binding divorce settlement documents. Mediation is another effective process where a neutral mediator assists the divorcing couple reach agreements, and where the parties often also have attorneys to advise them. Additional information about Collaborative Law, mediation, and divorce is on the Family Law and Divorce Options and Collaborative Divorce pages of this website.

Suitable for Many Divorce and Family Law Cases
Collaborative Divorce and divorce mediation are both highly effective and have been successful for a large number of divorcing couples. Collaborative Divorce is well-suited for complex divorces, such as cases involving complicated property and business issues, special needs children, and unique parenting issues where preserving post-divorce relationships is critical even when the conflict is significant. While Collaborative Divorce and divorce mediation can work well for most divorcing couples, no process is ideal for everyone. We can assist you in evaluating your options, so you can find the divorce process that is best suited for your unique situation. Part of our job is to help you identify the factors so you can decide whether Collaborative Divorce, divorce mediation, or another divorce process is best for you.

Divorce Mediation, Consultation, and Settlement Lawyer
In addition to Collaborative Divorce and facilitative divorce mediation, we also provide consultation services both to separating and divorcing clients and to attorneys, including second opinions and consultation on divorce negotiation strategy. We can provide the benefit of an outsider's perspective to your family law case, focusing on what is most important to you. Our significant experience, skill, and advanced training allows us to provide these services on a cost-effective basis from a Seattle family law attorney who is highly experienced in litigation, but whose sole focus is now on amicable settlement of divorce and family law matters.

Over 20 Years of Expertise as a Divorce Attorney
Rated among the finest family law attorneys in Washington State by Washington Law and Politics magazine, lawyer J. Mark Weiss has for the last 22 years helped couples divorce, with his extensive divorce litigation, mediation, negotiation and Collaborative Divorce experience. Mark received the “Attorney of the Year” award from the Washington State Bar Association Family Law Section, was named a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, and has continuously been on the “Super Lawyers” list of Washington Law and Politics Magazine since 2007. Having retired from divorce litigation after more than two decades of experience both inside and outside the courtroom, he is now entirely focused on non-adversarial family law dispute resolution, and trains other attorneys, financial specialists, and coaches in Collaborative Divorce. For more background information, click the “About Us” tab above.

Convenient Seattle Law Office - Serving Bellevue, Kirkland, Mercer Island and Surroundings
From our convenient Seattle location, we serve clients from throughout King County and beyond, including Bellevue, Kirkland, Mercer Island, Redmond, Everett and surrounding areas.  Mark provides guidance, insight, skill, and support to help guide you through your divorce or separation, or other family law matter. 

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DIVORCE TIP OF THE MONTH

Many divorcing couples wonder about what to do about retirement plans during their divorce. Your divorce lawyer will tell you that retirement is usually considered an asset in divorce that needs to be divided as part of the divorce settlement or in the divorce decree. Retirement plans -- whether in the form of traditional pensions, deferred compensation plans, Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs), or defined contribution plans such as 401(k)s -- all must be addressed in some fashion during divorce. The first step is to simply catalogue all possible retirement plans that you may have accumulated during your life. Even the small pensions that was earned from an employer before marriage must be addressed in some fashion. Sometimes divorcing couples do not realize that a single employer may have multiple plans, and it is important to double-check with the Plan Administrator during your divorce proceedings to ensure that all plans are addressed. Second, a value should be established so you can make good decisions about the plan during your divorce. Your divorce lawyer may be able to help with establishing the value or may recommend hiring an expert to assist in determining the value. In any event, a good divorce lawyer will want to review the statements and the "Summary Plan Description" (if a private plan) in order to understand the plan. The value depends on the type and specifics of the plan and may not always be obvious. Generally speaking, for an IRA or defined contribution plan (such as a 401(k) such as a VIP, or a 403(b) plan), the value is normally the account balance. For a defined benefit plan, such as a traditional pension, your divorce lawyer will likely recommend hiring an expert to assist in arriving at the value, which is a combination of legal factors (defined by the law and the plan) and financial consideration (such as historical market rates of return. When looking at the values of retirement plans during your divorce, be sure to carefully consider which retirement assets are before-tax assets and which are after-tax assets. Most will likely be before-tax. While most retirement plans can be transferred between spouses as part of the divorce without triggering taxation, whoever receives the plan as part of the divorce settlement will eventually need to pay income tax when the retirement is actually paid out. Some retirement plans are after-tax -- the most well-known are Roth IRAs and nondeductible portions of conventional IRAs, and the spouse receiving those as part of the divorce will normally not need to pay tax when the money is received. If retirement plans are cashed out before a certain age (currently mostly age 59-1/2), the IRS imposes an additional 10% tax on top of ordinary income tax. If you need to cash in all or part of your retirement as part of your divorce, be sure to count on that extra tax. If you are receiving all or part of your spouse's qualified defined contribution plan as part of your divorce, there is one technical way to avoid that additional 10% tax; the requirements are technical, so be sure to obtain assistance from a qualified professional if you wish to avail yourself of that possibility during your divorce. From experience, not all divorce lawyers or financial professionals are familiar with the technical requirements, so be sure to consult with a divorce lawyer or financial professional who is. Most retirement plans can be transferred between spouses as part of divorce. Government plans require special language or court orders. So-called "qualified" plans (such as most private pensions and defined contribution plans like 401(k)s) require a special court order called a "qualified domestic relations order." IRAs and some other plans need only be identified in the divorce paperwork. Because the requirements differ and can be complex, it is best to get qualified advice from a divorce professional when dealing with retirement plans.

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