YourDivorceMediator.com

Don Sinkov  is a Divorce and Separation Mediator in private practice in Westchester and Putnam Counties.  He mediates divorce, post divorce, custody visitation issues and move-out agreements.  Don has mediated over 2000  cases  and believes his approach to mediation  gives clients the best possible service.

As an expert mediator, Don is frequently called in by attorneys to help mediate complex divorce/custody issues, high asset individuals and non-traditional couples.  Many attorneys and couples use Don’s services before after and during litigated cases to help reduce costs.

 

About Don

As to why Don chose to focus on Divorce Mediation, Don says;

“Back in 2002, most of my friends were getting divorced,  and I heard stories about the outrageous costs, the lawyers battling, the years of litigation, and the damage it caused to everyone in the family as they went through their divorces. I thought I could use my skills as a mediator and arbitrator to help couples get separated and/or divorced without the fighting and high costs.

Don has been working exclusively in Divorce Mediation since that time and has helped over 2000 couples successfully negotiate their Separation Agreements and/or Divorces, on their own terms, via mediation.

Don started playing drums when he was 8 years old.  Using those skills, he became a full time rock and roll musician in his teens. Even then Don was preparing for his future by negotiating contracts for the bands with whom he played.  In his free time, he bought, renovated and sold residential real estate in the 1980s before the word “flip” became a watch word.

While a musician, Don trained with Computer Sciences Corporation and learned how to repair computers.  After working for CSC for a year, he joined the electricians union and ran for the position of shop steward.

As shop steward he wrote grievances to take to arbitration and quickly realized that he didn’t know enough about labor law.  Don enrolled at New York State of Industrial Labor Relations at Cornell University.  He spent three years studying labor law where he earned a BA Degree in Labor Studies.

Studying labor law increased his effectiveness as a shop steward and later Don was elected Division Chairman.   He further honed his skills serving as Arbitrator Chairperson for the securities industry, chairing and arbitrating cases for NASD, the Futures Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange that included firms such as Bear Stearns, Alliance Capital, Sanford Bernstein, Merrill Lynch, and Goldman Sachs.

In addition to the securities industry, Don served as the Lemon Law arbitrator for the State of New York mediating disputes between car dealers and customers.  He also volunteered for community mediation for a Community Dispute Resolution Center (CDRC) arbitrating hundreds of cases of landlord tenant disputes, neighbor to neighbor disputes, etc.

Don continued to study in different venues of arbitration and mediation and eventually chose to specialize in divorce mediation.

As a Divorce mediator Don’s passion is helping people get through the process the fastest and most cost efficient way.

“It’s not about anyone winning like litigation; It’s about the couple walking away with a good agreement  they’ve constructed for themselves in light of the information I’ve given them. Their decisions should be rooted in sound law and not based on emotions.  My hope is that they will look at this agreement five years from now when they are no longer emotionally involved in it and appreciate the fact that we didn’t allow the agreement to be based on the emotions of the moment.”

Don looks at things analytically like an attorney rather than a therapist.  He believes couples who come to him just want to get through the process as quickly and inexpensively as possible and not get taken advantage of.  Don wants the time they spend with him to flow and to do that he follows an outline he has developed that address all the issues:

• The Children – child support, custody, visitation
• Assets and Debt – Equitable distribution of assets and debts of the marriage
• Alimony/Maintenance – Whether or not the factors are present to include alimony and how it will be paid.

During the mediation, Don gives them explanations of all issues and tells them what the possibilities and choices are, but the couples make all the decisions regarding their agreement. Don remains neutral, not directing them to go any particular way.

Don has experience mediating couples from every walk of life. He has worked with couples getting divorce that have no money and just debt, couples in the middle who have some money and little debt, and also high asset couples, with complicated investment portfolios, trust agreements, businesses.  He has also worked with city, state and federal workers that have very different, and sometimes multi-part pensions where understanding how the different pensions are constructed is essential to the equitable distribution of assets .

He is an accredited mediator through the New York State Council of Divorce Mediation (NYSCDM), which is the highest standard in New York at this time.  He is also accredited through the Family Divorce Mediation Council of Greater New York (FDMCGNY) and is currently on the Roster of Neutrals for the Westchester County Supreme Court.

Don is proud of his success as a divorce mediator.  He says:

“I have people who call me years later and refer cases to me; their neighbors, their family members or they just put the case in my hands and say “we’ll follow your recommendations.  We know we can trust you”.  That’s as good as it gets as far as I’m concerned.”