Sender: ph@postoffice.srv.cs.cmu.edu
Message-ID: <39B941E5.36DB3F57@cs.cmu.edu>
Date: Fri, 08 Sep 2000 15:45:41 -0400
From: Paul Heckbert <ph+@cs.cmu.edu>
Organization: Computer Science Dept., Carnegie Mellon University
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: "Harry Q. Bovik" <bovik@cs.cmu.edu>
Subject: divorce mediator disrecommendation
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Dear Bovik: not sure how to file this in your current taxonomy.  Looks
like you don't have a divorce category or a mediators category. 
Lawyers might be the closest existing category.

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I'd like to dis-recommend Helene Borke (Squirrel Hill) as a divorce
mediator.  Mediators help people negotiate divorce and separation
disputes; they sit down with husband and wife and try to get them to
come to an agreement on issues like child custody, support payments
(alimony), and dividing up property and money.  When mediation works
well, it is much faster and less expensive than working through
lawyers, and leaves both parties less bitter about the outcome.

I used Helene Borke and found that she tended to side with the party
(you can guess which) that she perceived as having less power.  She
was not neutral, so the discussions degenerated into a two-against-one
argument.  I also found that she tended to wildly distort the truth to
buttress the case of the "weaker party" (arguing that receipt of
support payments did not constitute income, for example, and
misrepresenting the contract that we had signed).

Although I heard glowing reports of her skills before we tried her, as
if she was one of the best in town, and she was occasionally helpful
to us, she did not work well for me overall.  I think a fairer, more
neutral mediator could have helped far more.

So I recommend to others that they avoid Helene Borke if they need a
mediator.  Unfortunately, I do not have a mediator to recommend.