Dara Marias: A Holistic Approach to High-Conflict Divorce

Dara Marias practices a kind of divorce law that sounds impossible for BTGO's world: holistic, amicable, mostly out of court. She is the first to say safety comes before any of it, and that a high-conflict ex makes it harder. But the skills she teaches are the same ones that keep any case from spiraling.

Marias is a Las Vegas attorney with both a law degree and a master's in social work, and a former child custody mediator who did her mediation training in the Los Angeles conciliation court. She now practices holistic, largely non-litigated divorce, and supports people in litigated cases by building their emotional and co-parenting skills. Lisa met her at an amicable-divorce conference, and this conversation is about how those skills change the experience of a divorce, and its cost.

At the center is what Marias calls emotional agility: not making an important decision while you are either avoiding the whole thing or consumed by it. She teaches value-based decision-making, running each choice through a value you hold, usually your children's wellbeing, rather than through what someone deserves. For the kids she leans on the CPRs, continuity, protection from the details of the divorce, and reassurance, with the parent as the calm the child takes their cue from. And she is direct about the poisonous-message problem: when a child parrots something cruel from the other parent, defending yourself makes the child a judge between two parents, so the better move is to stay calm, keep them out of it, and let your steady conduct settle the question over time.

The other half is about pace and cost. Marias explains why "amicable" describes the attorneys, not the spouses, and how choosing an attorney who lowers the temperature rather than raising it protects both your money and your children. She talks through keeping a case out of court, where you hold more say than you would handing your family's future to a judge, and the small strategic moves that get a difficult ex to agree, connecting the process to what they value, and letting settlement feel like their idea. She also shares the reference materials she gives clients, from the legal vocabulary they'll hear to a fresh, private email account and the stages of grief no one warns them about.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Emotional agility: why you should never make a major divorce decision from a non-neutral state
• Why "amicable divorce" means the attorneys are amicable, not the spouses, and how to choose one
• Value-based decision-making: filtering every choice through what matters, not what someone "deserves"
• The CPRs for kids in divorce: continuity, protection, and reassurance
• When your child repeats a poisonous message, why correcting it puts them in the middle
• How not badmouthing the other parent also strengthens your custody case
• Keeping a high-conflict case out of court: the amicable network, and making it the ex's idea
• Why no stranger will decide your children's lives better than you can

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Meet Dara: an attorney with a social-work background
5:00 Emotional agility: don't decide from a non-neutral state
7:00 Why "amicable" means the attorneys, and choosing yours
9:00 Preparing: get familiar with your own finances
12:00 Value-based decisions, and the CPRs for kids
15:00 The flight-attendant analogy, and helping kids express feelings
19:00 When your child repeats a poisonous message
23:00 How not badmouthing also helps your custody case
27:00 Fencing in litigation: the amicable network, and making it their idea
35:00 Changing the dance with an oppositional ex, and staying out of court
41:00 Getting organized, and Dara's Divorce 101 resources

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Dara Marias at Kainen Law Group (see the "Holistic Divorce" page): https://kainenlawgroup.com/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.