I used Kevin & Debbie (Rochester, NY office) for my mediation process. I really would love to give them 5 stars because Kevin was just a good dude...very knowledgable. Debbie, the paralegal who I only ever consulted with via e-mail, was helpful if lacking a tad of bedside manner.
The reason for the drop from 5 to 4 is I felt things were not fairly or adequately explained to me during the mediation process. Now that I'm a year post-mediation, I really wish they had explained more of the Child Support laws - and that we should negotiate & potentially deviate from the state calculator because we were 50/50 custody. Instead, they just signed me up for the full $2,700/mo cost as the higher income earner and sent me packing. I also wish there was more thorough explanation about asset division. He suggested we keep her car loan in my name until the loan matures and just share the cost. Cool. Looks fine on paper, sounded fine in the office - but in reality, now I'm financially tied to my ex for 3-4 more years. I weirdly own her car and have to do her registrations, maintain insurance for her, and all that stuff. I can't imagine this isn't something they experienced before being professional family law specialists. A little education would've gone a long way. I appreciate that they wanted to keep things on the lower end of costs & move us through quickly...but some of these basic things would've been super helpful instead of telling me things to "get it done" that would ultimately be HUGE headaches later on. read more