Divorce with Dignity Mediation Services - Official Site

Marking our 11th Anniversary in 2008

Overview

Divorce with Dignity Mediation Services provides family & divorce, and business/civil, mediation services.  Our practice is almost entirely devoted to providing mediation services. We are passionate about mediation, and obsessed with providing quality service at an affordable price.

All mediation services are provided by Anju D. Jessani, Accredited Professional Mediator, rather than associates or trainees.  Her Wharton MBA and her extensive experience working in the financial world make her uniquely qualified to conduct complex, economic mediations.  The mediation and legal communities, as well as the New Jersey courts, acknowledge Anju as one of the most experienced and competent mediators in the region.  She is also active in training and mentoring mediators.     

Having completed over 500 mediations in the past eleven years, you have the comfort of knowing that your mediation is being conducted by a true professional, who is recognized by her clients for her expertise, tenacity, and caring. 

Locations & Services

We are conveniently located in downtown Clinton, New Jersey, and also in downtown Hoboken, New Jersey. Please visit our Clinton page and Hoboken page for more information and directions for each location. We are also willing to meet at your attorney's offices; there is usually no charge for travel time.

A description of Family & Divorce and Business/Civil mediation services is provided below. We can also provide you with names of mediation friendly attorneys and other professionals such as appraisers, financial advisors and tax specialists. There are never any referral fees involved with referrals to or from our firm.

What is Mediation?

Mediation is a court-approved process in which an impartial trained person, called a mediator, encourages and facilitates the resolution of a dispute between two or more parties. It is an informal, client-centered, non-adversarial process, with the objective of helping parties reach a mutually acceptable and voluntary agreement.  90% of clients who voluntarily choose mediation are able to come to an agreement. Mediation clients self-select to succeed.  Why not you? 

The role of the mediator is to help clients explore options and their consequences. The mediator does not make decisions for, or impose decisions on clients.

Advantages of mediation over litigation include:

◊ Mediation is generally faster and less costly

◊ Mediation is voluntary, private and confidential

◊ Mediation facilitates creative and realistic solutions

◊ Mediation allows parties to control their agreements

◊ Mediation eliminates a win-lose atmosphere and result

◊ Mediation provides a forum for addressing future disputes

◊ Mediation fosters communication and helps mend relationships

Since nearly all cases (97+%) settle sooner or later without going to trial, you can save yourself tens of thousands of dollars of legal costs by starting the mediation process early. Does it really make sense to invest large sums in a litigation process that will eventually lead to a similar resolution, but with a financial and emotional cost that may never be recovered? 

"People who design solutions to their own conflicts are more satisfied with the outcome, and have a stronger commitment to maintaining their agreements... Mediation teaches them new ways to deal with future conflict and new ways to communicate." 

Report of the Supreme Judicial Court/Trial Court Standing Committee on Dispute Resolution.

Family & Divorce Mediation Services

We are completely familiar with the divorce and child support issues that relate to New Jersey and New York cases.   This is very important as family law is specific to each state, with nuances that can make a significant difference to the outcome of your case.

During the course of the divorce mediation process, the mediators assists clients to identify all issues that need to be addressed for their situation. The mediator will begin by collecting relevant financial documents through a open disclosure process that takes the place of expensive and tedious discovery, helping you prepare budgets, working through child support guidelines as well as spousal support, if applicable, negotiating parenting (visitation) schedules, and also assisting you in dividing the marital assets.

At the end of the mediation, she will prepare a Memorandum of Understanding that summarizes the agreements reached in the mediation process. Clients are advised to retain separate counsel to review this document. Clients then arrange for an attorney or other qualified individual to prepare a settlement agreement based on the decisions agreed upon in the Memorandum of Understanding. 

Please visit our Divorce Mediation page for a more detailed explanation of divorce mediation, including a list of documents you might need to provide to your mediator at a later date.

For complex and high conflict cases, we offer collaborative mediation services, a hybrid of mediation and collaborative law, where we work with the clients directly, but have periodic five-way meetings with our clients and their attorneys, at critical junctures in the mediation process.  As we are completely independent, you are free to choose the attorney of your preference.  If, on the off chance, the collaborative mediation process does not lead to an agreement, you can continue to utilize your attorney as your advocate in the traditional divorce process.

We also specialize in providing post-divorce mediation services. Changes in circumstances as well as the child's age may necessitate new arrangements. Blended families, couples contemplating commitment, as well as families in crisis can utilize mediation to address/define financial and parental roles and responsibilities. Because of our urban location, we have significant experience mediating conflicts for clients with different socioeconomic, cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds. We provide mediation to families, stepfamilies, domestic partners, civil unions, roommates, never married couples, grandparents, and extended families, and are gay-friendly.

It is never too late to move from the litigation process to mediation - to use mediation to address those remaining issues that would benefit from a focus on interests not positions.

Additionally, we offer coaching/consulting to individuals going through separation or divorce, either through mediation or litigation, where we are not serving as the mediator. This can be especially helpful for clients going through court-ordered mediation.

Business & Civil Mediation Services

We also offers business & civil mediation services, both through the New Jersey Judiciary's Administrative Office of the Courts' (AOC) Presumptive Mediation Program for Civil Cases, Rule 1:40, and on a private basis.  As an experienced mediator, Anju also serves as a mentor to new mediators seeking co-mediation experience to qualify for admission to the roster of AOC mediators. She has also served as an instructor for training classes in Advanced Civil Mediation, as well as a facilitator for the Union County's annual civil mediation training program. 

We offer coaching/consulting to individual businesses and organizations going through the mediation process, where we are not serving as the mediator. This can be especially helpful for clients going through court-ordered mediation.

Profile for Anju D. Jessani, MBA, APM

Anju Jessani founded Divorce with Dignity Mediation Services in 1997. She is also a mediator with the firm. Her practice is devoted entirely to providing alternative dispute resolution services (primarily mediation), to clients who seek a non-adversarial, problem-solving approach to conflict resolution. 

Anju received her academic training at the Center for Family and Divorce Mediation in New York, and conducted her practical training through Hudson County Court's Mediation Program in New Jersey. She has served on the New Jersey Administrative Office of the Courts' Parenting Time Advisory Committee and is on the AOC approved list of civil and family mediators (Rule 1:40).  She is committed to making the divorce process more cooperative and respectful, as well as more cost-effective, and endeavors to treat every client as if they were her only client.

In addition to contributing to professional journals, Anju has also participated in media talk shows on the subject of divorce reform, and is an instructor for both divorce and civil/business mediation classes. Recently, she received special recognition from the New Jersey State Bar Association's Board of Trustees for her work on the New Jersey irreconcilable differences divorce bill, which was signed into law in 2007.

Reflecting her high level of training and experience in the field of mediation, Anju is an Advanced Practitioner Member of the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR), and an Accredited Professional Mediator (APM), by the New Jersey Association of Professional Mediators (NJAPM). She is also a Member of the multi-disciplinary organization, the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC).  She is also an instructor for the NJAPM and the New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education's 40-hour divorce mediation training program. 

Having served as NJAPM President for the term of 10/1/05 to 9/30/07, Anju now serves on the NJAPM Board of Directors as Immediate Past-President. She also serves on the University of Pennsylvania Alumni Secondary School Committee, Hudson County, and on the Board of Directors for Safe Harbor Child Access Centers.

Anju brings extensive experience in financial planning, real estate, taxation, pensions and contract negotiation to the mediation field. She has extraordinary project management skills that translate into meeting client deadlines in an organized and calm manner, thus helping to reduce your level of stress as you work to resolve your conflict. She will send you draft text documents in Word, and draft financial analysis in Excel, allowing you to review all deliverables before they are finalized. 

Anju holds an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (WG'83), and a BA from Douglass College, Rutgers University (DC'79). Prior to founding Divorce with Dignity Mediation Services, Anju was a manager with Price Waterhouse's consulting group, and most recently, a Vice President with JP Morgan. Anju has also served as a securities mediator and arbitrator. 

Born and raised in England, and of Indian ethnicity, Anju moved to the United States at age 12, attending middle and high school in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, and becoming a naturalized citizen in 1977. Her involvement in mediation and divorce reform arose from her divorce through mediation in 1994.  She is both a mother and a stepmother.