by Laurie Israel, Esq. Like many of you other mediators out there, I am always very pained to read accounts of our celebrity brethren who are struggling with their marriages. The media is insistent. The klieg lights focused on these Read More …
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Happy Life, Happy Wife
by Laurie Israel, Esq. Did you ever hear the expression “Happy Wife, Happy Life”? This overused adage seems to help some people (generally husbands) focus on their wife’s happiness in order to secure a peaceful, happy marriage. It seems quite Read More …
Taking the War Out of Our Words
by Laurie Israel, Esq. Intrigued by the title of the workshop and feeling that I needed to work on my skills in managing effective communication, I came to the Toronto IACP conference early to take the all-day Pre-Forum workshop on Read More …
25 Secrets to a Great Marriage
by Laurie Israel, Esq. As a practicing divorce attorney and divorce mediator, I’ve met a number of couples that, if they had been given some good advice (and had remembered that advice) a few years or even months earlier, they Read More …
Yours, Mine, and Ours — Strengthening Marriages With Financial Agreements
by Laurie Israel, Esq. The marriages of people who marry for a second time experience stresses, particularly when there are children from a previous marriage. Most of these problems are predictable. They are generally solvable with patience, good will, and Read More …
Why I Perform Weddings
by Laurie Israel, Esq. I have always cried at weddings. When I ponder as to why, I think that it is because I am …..genuinely concerned for the about-to-be newlyweds, and especially so for the young ones. As a 61-year-old Read More …
The Throw Away Marriage
by Laurie Israel, Esq. I always cry at weddings. It’s not because I think the wedding is so beautiful or the newlyweds are so adorable. It’s because I know (and they don’t) how difficult marriage will be for them. You Read More …
The Great Banana Wars – Deconstructing a Marital Dispute
by Laurie Israel, Esq. Marital disputes are an inevitable fact of life. It is the way that couples deal with these disputes that makes the difference between a viable marriage and one that is too unpleasant to bear. Usually, people Read More …
Ten Secrets of Reviewing Counsel for Clients in Mediation
Being a reviewing lawyer for a party in a mediation requires many skills. Surprisingly, only one of them is a knowledge of the law. This article summarizes my reflections on the skills involved in reviewing mediated agreements, and how there Read More …
“Monkey Mind” and Infidelity
by Laurie Israel, Esq. There is a time in everyone’s marriage when one spouse or the other is attracted to another person. After all, although we’re married, our interest in other humans is never completely shut off. Therefore, in the Read More …