From Her Sereda Park Home, Helping Couples Avoid Messy Divorce

The process of divorce is neither fun nor easy. But for those who must go through it, which of these sounds better for negotiating terms of separation: an acrimonious courtroom battle, or a respectful discussion in a parkside Western Springs dining room?

Local collaborative lawyer Anne Chestney Mudd is hoping, if you do choose to divorce, you’ll also choose the latter—and save yourself both money and stress.

“It’s less expensive not just in terms in dollars and cents, but in mental health,” Mudd said. “In litigation, the two sides are working against each other.... In collaborative law, the two sides are working together to create the best plan for moving forward.”

Collaborative law is a relatively new way of resolving legal issues related to divorce. Developed in 1990 by a Minnesota lawyer named Stuart Webb, the mediation-centered methodology aims to keep couples out of litigation when resolving their separation.

In collaborative divorce proceedings, the two parties sign a participation agreement absolving their lawyers from participating in any future litigation, then sit down together with those lawyers and try to reach an independent agreement.

Personal experience brought Mudd, a former College of DuPage and Lyons Township High School math teacher, into the field. When negotiating her own separation with her husband, she said, the general expectation among lawyers was that there would be lawsuits and serving of papers.

“I went to a whole lot of attorneys trying to find one who would not make an enemy out of my ex-husband,” Mudd said. “We had a ‘good divorce,’ but that was because I really worked at doing that, not because of the lawyers. And I really thought, ‘this is something somebody should be doing.’”

After learning about collaborative law, she returned to school, obtained a degree, and began her practice in 2002 in an office—only to discover that she found herself mostly working out of her ranch home bordering Sereda Park, where she has lived since 1977.

Before long, her home and her office became one and the same, with consolations on her couches and deliberations in her dining room. A screen shields her kitchen; her office, and her assistant’s, are in the basement. A small, inconspicuous sign now hangs by her front door: “Law Office.”

Holding mediation sessions in her cozy home came with a surprise benefit, too. “What we found was, nobody really wants to be a jerk in somebody’s house, [whereas] in a lawyer’s office it seems appropriate,” Mudd laughed.

Not being a jerk is critical to the collaborative law process. Mudd recalls how some aggrieved clients come to her with the intent of ruining their spouse, even up to leaving him/her homeless. That’s not what collaborative law is about, according to Mudd.

“My clients know when they retain me that I am not there to rip their spouse apart,” she said. “If they want that, they go to a different kind of lawyer.

“Sometimes, litigation is necessary,” she added, referring to cases where separation cannot be peaceably resolved, where one party refuses to come to the table or where severe abuse is involved. But she estimates that as many as 90 percent of divorces can be better resolved through collaborative law.

The only problem, Mudd says, is that people don’t know their options—that the reflex of most attorneys is to file for a court hearing.

To spread the word about collaborative law and responsible marital financial practices, Mudd will be speaking at the Hilton Garden Inn in Addison on Saturday, April 9 from 9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. The event is aimed towards educating women who are contemplating any major change in their marital status, and is free and open to the public. It is part of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s “Money Smart Week.”

Mudd adds that, while divorce may be frequently sad, she takes pride in what she can do for people.

“I really do help people,” she said. “[Divorce] is probably, for most people, the worst thing they will ever go through in their lives… I really feel very confident that I help people get through it in the best possible way they can.”