Couples Mediation
First Time?
Ready to follow up your first session?
You don't have to be getting divorced to come to mediation.
Many couples come to mediation because they know something in their relationship needs to change, but they don't yet know what that change will look like.
You may be wondering whether you want to stay together. You may know that you do, but need to find a different way of being together. You may be considering separation or divorce. Or you may simply be stuck in conflicts that you haven't been able to resolve on your own.
Couples mediation creates a structured space to figure out what comes next.
What Can We Work On?
Couples bring many different questions into mediation, including:
Recurring conflicts that never seem to get resolved
Communication that has become difficult or unproductive
Money and financial decisions
Parenting and family responsibilities
Intimacy, trust and boundaries
Major life transitions
Decisions about whether to stay together
Restructuring a marriage or partnership
Separation and divorce
You do not need to know the outcome before you begin.
What to Expect
Elizabeth begins by meeting with each person individually. This gives each partner an opportunity to explain what is happening from their perspective, identify what matters most to them, and become comfortable with the mediation process.
After those initial conversations, Elizabeth meets with the couple together. There is no predetermined number of sessions and no assumption about what the outcome should be.
The work is practical, relational and forward-looking: understanding the conflict, having the conversations that need to happen, and deciding what comes next.
Elizabeth Clemants
Elizabeth Clemants is a social worker, mediator and conflict resolution trainer with more than two decades of experience working with couples and families in New York City.
She holds a Master of Social Work from Columbia University with a minor in law and has been a certified mediation trainer for the New York State Unified Court System since 2000. She teaches mediation at Fordham Law School and has trained hundreds of mediators in family, divorce and conflict-resolution practice.
Elizabeth has also presented to the Family and Divorce Mediation Council on marital mediation in a program called “I Don't Want a Divorce.”
Her couples mediation practice includes people who want to remain together, people considering separation, and people who simply know their relationship needs to change.
Ready to Talk?
You don't need to decide whether you are staying together or separating before coming to mediation. Figuring that out can be part of the process.
Schedule an Initial Mediation Session
Elizabeth as a Mediator
Elizabeth has over 20 years’ experience in leading mediations.
She began her mediation career after she earned a master’s degree in social work and a minor in law from Columbia University. As Senior Director of the Safe Horizon Mediation Program (now the New York Peace Institute) she was instrumental in starting programs in family, civil, housing and criminal court, as well as keeping cases out of court by working with parties before they reached the point of legal intervention.
Elizabeth is a mediation trainer, and also serves as a mediator:
As a mediation trainer she is certified by New York State Unified Court System, and has since 2000 trained hundreds of mediators in basic skills, advanced family and divorce practice and small business commercial practice, as well as offering advanced training courses for experienced mediators and mentors.
As a mediator Elizabeth has experience working with many different types of cases, ranging from neighborhood/community disputes to high level corporate cases. Her current emphasis is on small businesses and family cases, including partnership disputes, marital mediation and divorce. Each of these cases involves a structure suited to the issue, but Elizabeth employs flexibility in her approach still working within an appropriate budget. She is highly skilled at crafting mediation processes that match the disputants so that each person gets what they need to make a good decision moving forward. She currently works as an adjunct professor at Fordham Law School and has taught at Cardozo Law School, Columbia Law School, and the New School for Social Research.
What to expect?
Elizabeth begins every mediation by meeting each party separately so they can get to know her, feel comfortable with the process and get a chance to explain what is most important, as they each see it. After those initial sessions, Elizabeth will meet with both parties for jointly for as many sessions as they need to accomplish their goals. There is no commitment to any number of sessions, and she will work with the parties to stay within a budget that makes sense for their dispute and finances. Once the mediation begins, most of the time the mediation will be conducted in joint session.