“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself” – Henry Ford
Financial experts, such as Accountants, Pension Actuaries and Financial Advisers can play a vital role in supporting you and your former partner to find sensible, fair and realistic solutions, in mediation.
So, where do your solicitors fit into this aspect of mediation?
The question we seek to answer in this section and video is;
What role might your solicitor play in choosing and instructing the expert and helping you understand the information they provide?
We cover this area in much more detail in the chapters Pensions in divorce AND Business interests and divorce.
Most mediators and solicitors will have a list of preferred and trusted financial experts they like to use and work well with.
The advantage of this is that each expert is more likely to understand how the other works and what is required of them (‘Mediation Teaming’).
Some mediators prefer to ‘outsource’ the process of choosing and instructing financial experts to their clients’ solicitors, inviting them to work collaboratively in support of the mediation process in order to obtain the required expert information for you and your former partner, to use in mediation.
This can work well where the two solicitors can and do, in fact collaborate well around these tasks and deal with them, as a matter of priority.
The other option is for your mediator to centralise the process of choosing and instructing the financial experts around the mediation process in which the mediator helps you to do the following;
- Select the right financial expert for the job in hand,
- Collect the correct information and documentation required by the expert
- Decide what questions to ask the financial expert so that some good clear instructions can be prepare in mediation and sent to the expert (perhaps checked by the solicitors first)
- Deal with questions the expert asks and information they require and, finally,
- Understand the expert’s report, when it is received, so that you can both apply this information to the financial options you wish to explore.
Whether you ‘centralise’ this process of choosing, instructing and understanding the expert information around the mediation process or ‘outsource’ this to the solicitors, working collaboratively in support of the mediation process, will depend on a number of factors such as the skill and willingness of the mediator to work in this way.
Many mediators are not comfortable or sufficiently knowledgeable or skilled to deal with all this in mediation and would rather ‘outsource’ to your solicitors to help, whereas others (often also solicitors or retired solicitors) are very comfortable working in this way.
There is a lot to be said for this especially where the financial circumstances are more complex and your mediator knows, trusts and recommends your solicitors.
Also, ask yourselves, are your solicitors collaborative in mindset, approach and sufficiently skilled?
If not, we have seen examples where the whole process unravel over the simple question of what questions to ask the expert. In these circumstances, centralising the process, or at least part of the process, around mediation could be much quicker, better contained and cheaper, if the mediator has the necessary knowledge and skills.
One other option perhaps worth mentioning is the option of the solicitors coming into mediation, at any stage, if it is felt that the mediator and mediation process is needed to keep the process of obtaining an expert report contained and focused, especially where things feel like they are getting out of control between solicitors over some financial disclosure point.
As you would expect, there are advantages and disadvantage to each approach so it is worth discussing your options and their implications with your mediator and solicitors.
Also, please read the chapter about pensions in divorce in which we cover the process of dividing your pensions on divorce.
Here you can either work with your mediator in mediation session to produce some instructions for your Pension expert or you can ask your solicitors to collaborate, in support of the mediation process, to do this for your mediation clients.
In that chapter we provide a letter of instruction template, as well as a range of other documents, for you and your mediator to use if you all think it will save you time and money and the end result will be a good expert report to work with.
However, where a company valuation and tax calculations are needed, you might decide to ask your solicitors to collaborate in support of the mediation process, to help you with obtaining this information.
When it comes to business valuations you may want to read the chapter- business interests and divorce, if you have not already done so. As part of this chapter we provide a guide to instructing a business valuation expert.
In summary, in many circumstances you solicitors may have an important supportive role to play in helping you and your former partner to;
- Choose the right expert
- Gather the right information for the expert
- Ask the right questions,
- Answer the expert’s questions, and
- Help you to understand the expert report and how it might apply to your circumstances
A good starting point is to discuss your options with your mediator. They will then work with you and your former partner to decide on the best approach, in your particular circumstances, the particular task in hand, the solicitors you have helping you and the complexity of the situation and information, to name but a few.