Winning Your Divorce: A Man's Survival Guide

Rating:
Summary: Buy the book and get out your highlighter
Review: Excellent resource! Buy the book and get out your highlighter (you may even need a new one there is so much valuable information inside)!! Definitely read this book before you file for a divorce, or as soon as you hear the word 'divorce' from your spouses mouth.

Rating:
Summary: Hard Core Advice; Readable; Focussed on Winning the War
Review: This guy is dead serious about getting his male (and female) clients a fair deal during divorce proceedings. But he's not advocating vindictive strategies, because that not the best way to win the war. And he's all about winning the war - defined as getting the best NET financial deal possible (i.e after tax considerations and legal costs). You shouldn't be in divorce proceedings if want to make up with your spouse. Therefore, if you ARE in divorce proceedings you have to believe that you're in a war and act that way. Period.

He makes the point that you're in for disappointment if you're in court looking for justice or vindication - that's not what the US court system is about.

This book is very readable. He has obviously taken pains to include plain English descriptions of things that they layperson involved in a divorce may not be familiar with - Discovery, the Trial process, direct/cross examination, etc.

He also includes a continuous stream of tactics, for each stage of the divorce process, that will improve the chances of the male not being burned by the female-biased divorce process. These range from the obvious - take control of joint assets quickly (e.g. clean out the joint accounts, take control of financial documentation, etc) to the less apparent (e.g. encourage her to seek work, always demand custody of the children [even if you don't want them], lower her [but NOT your own] standard of living before the divorce, if you move out then DON'T move into a cheap apartment - get a more expensive one, etc)

He's also very direct on the matter of reality vs. popular myth concerning the system - biased judges, how lawyers react to various situations, the reality of overbilling and bone-lazy lawyers, purchasing favorable expert testimony, etc.

Probably the most interesting part of the book is kinda obvious in hindsight, but he reiterates it continually because emotional, vengeful couples lose sight of it - it's much cheaper (and for the male, will often result in a better outcome) to settle at some stage, rather than pursue divorce all the way through to the end of a trial. He frequently gives examples to illustrate why that is the case and shows how to successfully use out-of-court negotiations and tactics to get things that an 'in the best interests of the child' style bored-with-too-many-divorces judge is unlikely to give you.

Great book. Nice counterpoint to the female version (from a different author) called "Divorce War! 50 Strategies Every Woman Needs To Know To Win"

Rating:
Summary: Not for Men Only!
Review: Wow! A woman likes this book? Indeed! This very readable book is NOT just another "me-too" version of what is already out there. There's always a new spin on protecting possessions, tax aspects of the settlement--all that good meaty financial stuff--and the author is an original thinker in many areas, including important principles and tips on successful negotiating. I purchased this book to find out the "tactics" my cheating husband would be using in negotiation to grab as much of the goodies as he could. But along with that, I found there were quite a few tips that could benefit one whether male OR female. I guess it's like my dad always said, "What's good for the goose is good for the gander."