What Does Your Employee’s Divorce Cost You? (And What You Can Do To Reduce That Cost)

Submitted by William H. Donahue, Jr., Esq., Transitions Mediation Center

Divorce is a major, negative life event, often causing stress similar to that caused when an employee is facing a serious disease, a major family issue, or an addiction. Research shows an employee earning $8.00 an hour will cost his or her employer approximately $3,770 during the course of a litigated divorce due to lost productivity and work disruption to peers and supervisors. An employee earning $20.00 an hour will cost his or her company about $8,000.

These figures assume a year for the entire divorce process. In most states, especially Pennsylvania, this is highly optimistic.

Typical litigated divorces take on a familiar cycle outlined in the following six steps. Mediated divorces have no such cycle.

1. Step One
   One or both spouses decide to get a divorce
2. Step Two
   They retain two divorce attorneys. Retainer fees in divorce litigation are paid up front and range from $2,500 to over $10,000 per spouse. This is just a down payment.
3. Step Three
   Most Communication between them ends. This often happens because their lawyers suggest the parties not discuss the divorce.
4. Step Four
   Fear and Paranoia begin to develop: "Strike First" Mentality. Without communication, whatever trust may have existed begins to disappear.
5. Step Five
   With each strike and counterstrike, anger and fear increase. The parties dehumanize each other and themselves. In litigation, I often hear clients say, "I don’t even know this person anymore." And even worse, "I can’t believe what I’ve turned into." As the war escalates, people dehumanize themselves and each other. They reach the point where they are willing to do anything to win, or at least not to lose. The result is a staggering average of $35,000 per couple for legal fees in a litigated divorce that does not go to trial. The cost can be many times that if they actually go to a full divorce trial.
6. Step Six
   As the trial date nears, the parties settle the case often on terms they do not like and may not even understand. The amount of time each party spends in their attorney’s office increases, costs soar and the parties feel tremendous pressure to settle. Often settlements are made on the day of trial "on the court house steps" where people can hardly comprehend what they are agreeing to. The emotional and financial toll is overwhelming for many.

But it’s not divorce itself that causes all the problems. It’s divorce litigation, a process that is adversarial by design and often disastrous in practice. There is an alternative.

The alternative is Divorce Mediation
Most people, especially employers and business people are familiar with workplace and employment mediation programs. Most major corporations have mediation or conflict resolution programs. They are an important tool used to increase productivity and reduce employee turnover and litigation. The same basic principles used in workplace mediation are used to resolve divorces.

How and Why Divorce Mediation Works So Well for So Many People
Mediation is based on the premise that people have the right and the ability to resolve their own conflicts if given the appropriate environment in which to do so. Litigation is based on the premise that someone else will resolve the conflict for them. (Judge or Jury).

The difference is profound. Litigation is adversarial , meaning it pits the parties against each other. Mediation is a cooperative process that allows the parties to work together to get a result that meets both their needs and interests.

My role as a divorce and family mediator is to help my clients create an environment in which they can negotiate comfortably and productively. Because of my legal background, I can explain general principles of divorce law to them and then help them gather the information they need to make informed decisions for themselves that will be credible in a court of law. But I don’t make those decisions for them. I do not offer legal advice. I recommend that each of my mediation clients retain a review attorney to look over their agreement before the divorce is finalized.

Communication between them rarely breaks down and in fact, often improves. These are skills they take with them into their new post-divorce lives, and into the workplace. With ongoing communication, the fear and paranoia that can become so toxic in litigation rarely develop. There are no court appearances, no depositions, no witness preparation or all the other aspects of litigation that become ruinously expensive and emotionally devastating. Employees can continue to focus on work rather than being obsessed with a divorce process they feel is eating them alive.

Mediation is highly effective and works for most people who try it. 90-95% of the couples I work with resolve everything they need to resolve to move forward and get a very simple, uncontested divorce.

The following chart shows the dramatic differences between litigation and mediation.

People who mediate their divorces suffer little if any of the collateral damage that often occurs during litigation. Their children are happier and adjust better to the divorce, which prevents a wide range of problems in the years after the divorce for both the spouses, the children, and not surprisingly, the parent’s employers.

As an employer, you probably will not know that an employee has been drawn into divorce litigation until much of the damage has been done. The best way to protect yourself from the costs of your employee’s litigated divorce is to provide information about divorce mediation to all your employees. Look again at the costs of a litigated divorce for every employee you have who is or one day may be going through that process. Mediation can and will eliminate most if not all those costs.

William H. Donahue, Jr., Esq., APM, founded Transitions Mediation Center in 1995 to address the growing need for mediation in the Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey area as an alternative to expensive, time-consuming and emotionally draining litigation. Learn more at www.itsmydivorce.com.