My ex wife wanted to have a mediated divorce and she picked Mr Gibbs for the mediator. Our initial consultation he seemed to be impartial and willing to help us work through issues like custody of our youngest child, division of assets, and splitting our pensions and retirement accounts. He estimated a number of meetings to work out the details and some staff hours to prepare and file the documents for our divorce.
After I had paid a significant sum, in advance, for his cost estimate and started the first meeting post initial consultation his demeanor changed 180 degrees. He would constantly advocate for my ex, who by the way was having an affair with one of her students and decided to file for divorce, refused counseling or anything else to save our marriage. Every time she asked about something or made a demand his response was "it's your divorce, you can do whatever you want." On the contrary if I asked a question his response was automatically to dismiss me. When I inquired about first right of refusal for our son, he refused stating that "Judges don't like that." Mr Gibbs also insisted, on the suggestion of my exwife, that I produce my dad's financial documents for the previous 3 years. After the meeting ended and the next meeting was scheduled he proceeded to give my name and financial information to a mortgage broker who called me repeatedly insisting that I needed to refinance my mortgage to cash out enough to buy my exwife out of the house. I refused and he became increasingly more insistent demanding that I use him in order to keep Mr Gibbs happy. I can only presume that there was a kickback involved with these 2.
Before my second meeting I did some research and was lead to "Robert's Rules of Order" a book on the standards of parliamentary procedure that is used extensively in mediation procedures. I asked Mr Gibbs to invoke Robert's Rules in our meetings due to my ex constantly interrupting me, cutting me off, and talking over me during my responses to Mr Gibbs. He flatly refused, insisting that it was unnecessary. Her behavior continued and every time I pointed it out, that I wasn't able to respond to him or answer a question because I was constantly interrupted he would respond with something along the line of well she had something to add, she needs a chance to chime in, etc. Then he'd move on without ever allowing me an opportunity to respond. At one point our zoom conference dropped me and left me unable to call back in for approximately 20 minutes. I ended up having to call Jani, Mr Gibbs' paralegal, who is fantastic by the way, and she had to call Mr Gibbs and get him to let me back into the meeting. I can only wonder what he and my ex discussed during the time that I wasn't on the meeting. Finally, at the end of the meeting he circled back to several of the questions that I wasn't able to respond to due to my ex's interruptions, and accused me of failing to answer his inquiries.
I produced the stacks of documents that he demanded, including 3 years of my dad's Financials and delivered them to his office. He charged me numerous hours to review them, when I asked if my ex was paying half I was told no, they were my documents, the only ones that weren't our marital ones were my dad's Financials which she had demanded, so I failed to understand why the review was charged only to me. Furthermore he demanded more money since we had exhausted his estimate of the meeting times and now the review of documents that Mr Gibbs had demanded needed to be paid for as well. I paid another advance
Because I am a slow learner I continued to a 3rd meeting post consultation, still believing that there was progress being made on our divorce. The 3rd meeting went much the same as the first 2, my ex making wild demands, constantly interrupting me, and refusing anything that I suggest. All with Mr Gibbs constantly agreeing with her at every step and belittling or dismissing me at most opportunities. As the meeting was coming to a close I asked about how many more meetings he expected to need and where the divorce decree stood progress wise. Astonishingly he actually responded to me. I was shocked when he reported that he hadn't started anything yet and felt that we had only agreed to my ex-wife's demands. He expected many more contentious meetings to get into the division of assets, splitting up the pensions and retirement accounts, and child custody. He also didn't miss the chance to blame me for failing to use his buddy to do the cash out refinance of our family home, claiming that was the reason for no real progress being made after thousands of dollars were squandered.
If I could give negative stars Mr Gibbs would receive a NEGATIVE 5 star review.
Again, Jani is fantastic, I feel genuinely sorry for her working for someone who exhibits zero morals. read more
