How to reach Daniel and what to expect from your first session

Hello, You can reach me, Daniel, by phone, email, or through the Pre-Mediation Interview. If you choose the Pre-Mediation Interview, you’ll receive an automatic email confirming your request and explaining the next steps. This also helps me understand a little about your situation before we meet, so our time together can be most helpful. Due to our experience and reputation, we are very busy. We prefer to help you determine if mediation is the right option before you invest your time and money.

If mediation seems like a good fit, we’ll schedule a first session, lasting about 2 to 2½ hours. Please note this session is not free of charge, but it is designed to give you clarity and guidance on your situation. During the session, our main goal is to create a place to be heard and to hear—a safe space where both of you can speak openly and feel understood. We will also:

• Review your situation in detail

• Share helpful legal information

• Identify and organize the issues that matter most

• Create an agenda to guide our discussion

• Start working through these issues together

• Introduce communication tools to make the process smoother

By the end of this session, topics like support, division of assets, debts, and pension plans should be much clearer. Afterward, we’ll decide together whether it makes sense to:

• Schedule another mediation session, or

• Move forward with drafting a Separation Agreement and/or Parenting Arrangements.

If we move forward with a written agreement, the second session (and any additional sessions needed just for drafting or finalizing the agreement) will be free of charge. If there are still unresolved issues, additional mediation sessions will be charged accordingly. Once the agreement is ready and reviewed, it may be signed with our Commissioner for Taking Oaths. The Commissioner can administer oaths and take affidavits, which is often useful if you want the agreement sworn as true for potential court use. If you’d like, we can also provide a list of lawyers for Independent Legal Advice (ILA), to make sure you feel fully confident in your decisions.

To help you reflect on whether mediation is right for you, we’ve created a short quiz:

• Are you willing to share your information openly?

• Are you willing to be fair for both parties?

• Is your level of communication civilized?

• Do you understand that if mediation is not a win-win situation, it will not work?

• Do you have some concept of power imbalance?

• Will you try to speak freely and honestly with the other party?

• Are you afraid the other party’s reaction might become physically violent if the session does not go the way they wish?

• Are you aware that in Canada, divorce is no-fault, meaning it does not matter who is “liable”?

• Are you aware that in Canada, divorce is no-fault, meaning it does not matter who is “liable”?

• Are you willing to patiently listen to the other person’s perspective?

Warm regards,

Daniel