About

Collaboration Toward the Future

I am dedicated to my work as a mediator and as a financial neutral in a collaborative law team because I believe that, for many divorcing couples, it is the best way for a couple to move through the divorce process while honoring their own and each other’s dignity, helping both parties to form new lives.

Margaret Yonco-Haines

Online Family and Divorce Mediator (Putnam, Dutchess, Westchester, NY)

Wellesley College, BA
NYU School of Law, JD, LLM(Tax)
Columbia Teachers College, Certificate in Dispute Resolution
CDFA ™

Divorce mediation is a way for couples who have decided to end their marriage relationship to work collaboratively on a separation/divorce plan in the most amicable, speedy, and cost effective way possible. I also provided services as a financial neutral in collaborative divorce practice.

As a mediator, I work with the couple as they move through the process of separation and divorce. The goal is for them to listen to each other, and gain a better understanding of their own and their partner’s needs. I help the couple address all necessary issues and keep the dialog open. My work as a financial neutral concentrates on the financial arrangements necessary in connection with a divorce.

If children are involved, the non-adversarial approach of mediation and collaborative practice increases the parents’ ability to work together on future parenting issues and minimize their children’s stress. After all, divorce may end the marriage relationship, but the couple will never cease being parents.

In both mediation and collaborative practice the couple controls all decision-making, allowing them to find solutions uniquely suited to their own needs.

Mediation can also be effective for family disputes that are part of almost every on-going relationship. Examples include conflict between parent and adolescent or between an elderly parent and adult children, or it could involve decision-making on important life decisions by a couple. Mediation can help families work through these types of issues.