You have decided a parent coordinator might be the right tool for your family, or someone (an attorney, a therapist, or the court) has suggested it. Now what?

The parent coordinator role in Maryland is well-defined by Maryland Rule 9-205.2, but the actual experience of working with a PC is less well-explained. Parents who have never done this before often show up to their first meeting unsure what will happen, what the PC will ask them to do, and what a typical engagement looks like over the following months. This post walks through the workflow from start to finish.

Most parents searching for parenting plan templates are looking in the wrong place. A generic template from a national website will not tell you what a Howard County or Anne Arundel County judge actually reads when they review your parenting plan, and the gap between a template and a court-ready parenting plan can matter more than people realize.

A parenting plan is a written document that defines how co-parents will raise their child after separation or divorce. Under Maryland Court Rules, a parenting plan is required in any case where a party asks the Court to establish or modify custody of a minor child.

Most Maryland residents starting a divorce or custody matter ask the same question in the first phone call: "Do I need a lawyer, or should I try mediation?"

The honest answer is that many people end up using both, in different roles, at different stages of the process. A family law mediator and a family law attorney do fundamentally different jobs in Maryland. A mediator is a neutral third party who helps two people reach agreement. A family law attorney is your advocate, representing your individual interests and giving you legal advice specific to your situation.

I still remember the first time my name showed up on a list like this. It was 2016, Maryland Rising Stars, and I read the email twice to make sure it said what I thought it said. I am not sure that instinct has fully gone away.

I have been named to the 2027 Maryland Super Lawyers list in Family Law. This is my fourth year in a row on the Super Lawyers list, and my tenth year of recognition overall, counting six years on Maryland Rising Stars before that.

If a therapist, an attorney, or a court order has put the phrase "parent coordinator" in front of you, the natural next question is what one actually does. Not the definition on a court website. The day-to-day.

A Maryland parent coordinator (PC) is an impartial professional, typically a licensed mental health professional or an attorney with mediation training, who works with two co-parents to reduce conflict about their children, help them communicate, and resolve day-to-day disputes about parenting decisions.

If you have a contested custody, visitation, divorce, or property case pending in any Maryland circuit court, you are likely going to mediation. The court orders it as a matter of standard practice in most contested family cases, and you will receive that order soon after your scheduling conference.

If you do not have a case pending and you are trying to resolve a family law issue before filing one, you can still use mediation. You will engage a mediator directly. Once you reach an agreement, you can file an uncontested case to obtain the court order you need.

Some divorces happen in the wreckage of something else. They are the kind of events that permanently change the people who live through them. When they end a marriage, the divorce carries layers of grief that other situations simply do not.

This post is not about minimizing any of that. It is about a practical question that matters regardless: when two people who have been through something terrible together now need to separate, what process makes sense?

By mid-June, the calls start coming in. A parent is supposed to hand off the kids for a two-week vacation, and the other parent will not confirm the flight details. Camp registration deadlines passed weeks ago, and nobody signed the form. The custody order says alternating weeks in summer, but one parent took a job that requires Thursday-Friday travel, and the schedule no longer fits. A grandparent is in town and wants the kids for the weekend, which is not technically anyone's weekend. A child has decided they do not want to go to the other parent's house this summer, and one parent is refusing to make them.

You did not plan for this. The kids left. Retirement arrived. The career shifted. And somewhere in the middle of what was supposed to be a new beginning, the marriage reached a quiet, unavoidable end.

Transitions that were meant to open a new chapter have a way of exposing how much has quietly changed between two people. They are driving more Maryland divorces than most people realize.

If you are searching for this question late at night, you are not alone, and you do not have to decide tonight.

Most people who eventually file for divorce do not arrive at that decision on a single Tuesday. They arrive at it over months or years of cycling between certainty and doubt, between "this has to end" and "maybe this can still work." That cycling is not weakness. It is how human beings make hard, permanent decisions about the people they once promised to spend their lives with.

The first question almost every client asks is some version of "How long is this going to take?" The second question, usually within a minute or two, is "Can it be faster?"

Both are reasonable. A divorce timeline is not just a procedural curiosity. Uncertainty about how long it will take is one of the most consistent stress drivers I hear about from clients.

Almost every divorce client asks me is some version of the same thing: "Are we going to court?"

The honest answer is: not necessarily. Most Maryland divorces never reach a contested trial. Most settle through mediation, negotiation, or some combination of the two. But the choice between mediation and litigation is not just about cost or speed. It is about who decides the outcome, how much of your private life becomes public record, and what your relationship with your former spouse looks like the day after the case ends.

Most people walk into the divorce process expecting a fight. What they discover, often too late, is that the fight itself becomes the most expensive, most exhausting part.

If you are considering divorce in Maryland, mediation may be the most important option you have never fully understood. This post explains what it looks like in practice, what Maryland law says about it, and how to know whether it is right for your situation.

The divorce decree is signed. The boxes are unpacked. And somewhere, on a piece of paper drafted three or seven or fifteen years ago, your former spouse is still your beneficiary, your healthcare agent, your trustee, or all three.

This is the part of divorce nobody warns you about. The legal end of a marriage does not, on its own, rewrite the documents that decide what happens if you become incapacitated or pass away.

The day your child turns eighteen, the law treats you like a stranger.

That sentence sounds dramatic until the first time you live it. A hospital will not tell you whether your daughter has been admitted. The bursar's office will not discuss the bill. Your son's doctor stops returning your calls. Eighteen years of being the person who handled all of it, and on a Tuesday morning, none of it is yours to handle anymore.

When people begin considering divorce or custody litigation, many assume that filing in court is the first step. Sometimes it is. Often it is not.

The first step should be identifying the appropriate process. Mediation and litigation are not competing ideologies. They are tools. The right tool depends on the facts, the level of risk, and the long-term goals for the family.

Every client who walks through my door is carrying something. Sometimes it is grief. Sometimes it is anger. Sometimes it is pure, unrelenting anxiety about what comes next. In fifteen years of practicing family law and mediation, I have yet to meet a client for whom divorce was easy. What I have met are clients who managed it well, and clients who did not, and the difference between them rarely came down to the complexity of their case. It came down to a handful of habits and decisions made early in the process.

Divorce rarely begins with a single conversation. For most people, it builds over time, sometimes slowly, sometimes all at once. You may have been thinking about it quietly for years, or something may have shifted recently and left you wondering whether your marriage can recover.

If you are mediating a prenuptial or postnuptial agreement, preparation matters.

Mediation is structured and focused. It works best when both parties walk in informed and organized. The goal is clarity, not paper for paper’s sake. Here are five categories of information or documentation you should bring to mediation for a prenup or postnup.

Not every couple addresses financial expectations before marriage. Life changes. Businesses grow. One spouse leaves the workforce. Trust is tested. Prior assumptions no longer fit the present reality.

A postnuptial agreement, or “postnup”, is a written contract entered into after marriage that defines financial rights and responsibilities during the marriage or in the event of separation or divorce.