Marriage & Divorce
  • Home
  • Marriage
  • Divorce
  • Books
  • Resources
    • Video Series
    • Booklets
    • Marriage Series
    • Divorce Series
    • Co-parenting Series
  • About
  • Contact
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
Blogs
Divorce Series, Skills needed for an amicable divorce

Have Goal Based Standards for Success!

Kenneth H. Waldron, Ph.D. and Allan R. Koritzinsky, J.D. are your divorce doctors.  This and other blogs on our site have the purpose of helpin people achieve a sensible divorce.  The question that this blog focuses on is “Does the current family law system focus on a Plan (meaning a settlement or Court decision) for reaching long-term goals for both parties?”

            In a prior blog (“Don’t be Tricked”), we pointed out that the traditional family law system lacks a customer focused strategic intent and value proposition that helps divorcing parties develop a plan for reaching long term family and financial goals.  Therefore, parties and their attorneys must focus on developing such a plan in negotiations, by cooperating.  The first step is to have a clear and shared understanding of the long-term goals of both parties, before taking positions on the legal outcomes.  The second step is to develop a plan that aims at achieving those goals for both parties.  If there are disagreements about the plan, the third step is to resolve disagreements in a manner that optimizes the solution for both parties.

            Another “trick” of the traditional family law system is that the only standard for measuring the negotiated settlement is whether or not the parties settled on the legal outcome.  There are vague, and possibly interfering standards, such as an equitable division of property or the best interests of the children, but there is no measure of whether or not the plan is a good one.  Research identifies five meaningful standards, that parties and their attorneys can apply to the negotiated settlement.

Standards of Measuring Settlement Success – The Five E’S

The Five E’s are: Educated, Effective, Equitable,Equilibrant and Envy Free. These Standards are derived from the branch of mathematics in which John Nash worked: Game Theory, and are briefly defined below:

Educated: Through the process, the attorneys have educated their clients with regard to financial issues, such as tax implications, and child issues, such as the social science research that predicts healthy outcomes for children.  

Effective: The settlement agreement on legal outcomes accomplishes what the parties are trying to accomplish – a structure that begins the Plan to reach life goals.

Equitable: The settlement agreement is generally fair to both parties, especially taking into consideration the subjective values.  The settlement might not seem equitable when solely taking into consideration of the objective values, but when both the objective and subjective values are considered, it might not only be deemed fair but also deemed very fair to both parties.

Equilibrant: This is the most technical Standard.  Does the settlement agreement represent the maximum potential for both parties, or could it be improved, at least for one if not both parties, without hurting the other party?  For example, might a child specialist or an accountant be able to structure the settlement agreement, better for the children, saving taxes, and the like?  The goal is to optimize the plan for both parties.

Envy Free: Most divorcing parties can accept some losses, both with regard to financial matters and parenting.  A settlement package is envy free when neither party would trade his or her package for the package of the other party.  

These standards set the stage for measuring the success of the planning process.  If the above Standards (meaning the Five E’s) are not met, then the parties and their attorneys should go back into negotiation in order to meet these Standards. 

The take-away is a simple one: work towards a high quality plan and judge that quality by the Five E’s, not just whether or not the case settled.  

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on WhatsApp
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Reddit
  • Share by Mail
/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/logo-marriage-and-divorce-books.svg 0 0 Kenneth Waldron /wp-content/uploads/2023/05/logo-marriage-and-divorce-books.svg Kenneth Waldron2019-05-07 10:29:382023-07-06 13:26:10Have Goal Based Standards for Success!

Categories

Search by Topic

addiction affairs Arguing argument bias careers cheating Children children's perspective co-parent co-parenting conflict control Controlling debt democrat Disagreement resolution disagreement resolution skills disagreements divorce Divorce conflict divorced parents Divorce emotions flexibility getting emotional grown children healthy co-parenting honesty in-laws listening lying marital conflict marriage Marriage skills money problems mother-in-law political arguments relocation republican resolving disagreements rules for successful marriage successful marriage taking sides voting working as a team
Marriage and Divorce logo

© 2023 All rights reserved. | 1 Day Website by Bizzy Bizzy
Skills Needed for an Amicable Divorce: Do We (Really??) Live In Two Different...Understanding Divorce Conflict – Do the Math!
Scroll to top

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

OKLearn more×

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Google Analytics Cookies

These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.

If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Other cookies

The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Terms and Conditions
Accept settingsHide notification only