Rich was referred to us by the LGBTQ center of Palm Springs and someone who could mediate an amicable divorce. No one wants to go to divorce camp. It has zero stars here on yelp. Working with Rich was easy at first, but then the stress of the divorce in the fact that I was the one who left with only the clothes on the back, led me to have to make expensive financial decisions to secure a home and stability I ended up in a mental health crisis and sought help, then engaged the Services of Marble law to Craft my settlement offer. Rich was extremely adversarial and unprofessional towards both myself and my Attorney Rykesha Thomas. He was even cruel enough to weaponize my mental health crisis against me, calling me, incompetent to enter into any sort of agreement. I have never had a mental health crisis in my life, and the only one I did have was related to my divorce to the woman. I was married to for 29 years. I got the help I needed, and I'm disappointed to have found such an utterly un empathetic, unprofessional and cruel mediator. Rich Gordon should not be in this line of work. I cannot recommend him or a fairway mediation and would suggest you look at other mediators, especially female ones. Rich does not seem to understand same-sex marriages as a cisgender white male. I now regret engaging his services and have engaged the services of another mediator and fired Rich as my attorney thus likely setting back the date that my divorce will be final. But that is less important than the overtly hostile manner in which he treated myself and my attorney. Rich does not have the emotional intelligence or the gravitas his position demands. read more

If I could give 0 stars, I would. Total scammer. Please don't use this guy. Biased with totally unethical billing practices. Ropes you in with a "nice guy" approach. Just save yourself the trouble and financial strain...higher a real lawyer for the prices he wants to charge. Please call or text me at 760-593-9823 if you have any questions. I will share my experience and you can decide for yourself. Anything more I write here, Rich will just find a way to discredit in his "lawyerish" way. If I could give 0 stars, I would. Total scammer. Please don't use this guy. Biased with totally unethical billing practices. Ropes you in with a "nice guy" approach. Just save yourself the trouble and financial strain...higher a real lawyer for the prices he wants to charge. Please call or text me at 760-593-9823 if you have any questions. I will share my experience and you can decide for yourself. Anything more I write here, Rich will just find a way to discredit in his "lawyerish" way. Update: Rich sent me the threatening response below... so many things to say to this petty response. I'll just comment that my marriage "mistake" requires no defending. It was not "tragic," just a simple mistake. Perhaps the greater "tragic" mistake here is in calling Rich a mediator. There are a lot of other reviews on here mentioning the same...perhaps it is a theme. And threatening a response that may defame me, my "tragic" marriage choice, or refusal to pay unethical billing fees beyond the 3500 dollar retainer without due notification (monthly invoices promised) ...whatever man. You are entitled to your opinion. As am I. Please don't use this guy! read more

A Fair Way Mediation - Meditation Centers Near Me - Rancho Mirage, California

Working with Rich was a life saver. He was attentive and involved, suggestive and empathetic without crossing lines, readily available without breaking the bank and ready to take it to the wall. If the need for these services came up again, he would be the first phone call. read more

Divorce is a stressful undertaking. When two people decide to part ways, it leads to many discussions as to the future of both parties and how to separate. The majority of these divorce proceedings are between two people who are often vindictive and hurtful to each other. My wife and I didn't do the normal divorce; we discussed our respective futures for eighteen months before we parted ways to ensure we did not hurt each other or cause residual pain once our marriage was dissolved. It was important for our future interactions to show the mutual respect and love that we both committed to when we made our initial vows. We do not hate one another, but actually quite the opposite. We realize this tends not to be the norm, but we are perfectly okay with deviating and made that very clear to a professional who is described as a "mediator." We chose Rich to help us with the paperwork and filing. My wife and I were in complete agreement on all facets of the separation, retirement and pensions, trusts, wills, etc. There was no need for further compromise or negotiations. We were still living together when we started the process, and were always in agreement when we discussed all facets of our divorce. The most upsetting, painful and bitter part of this divorce was using Rich Gordon, aka #imfair4you, as our mediator. He ruined a process that we collectively tried to make smooth and relatively painless, as well as quite affordable considering everything we had agreed to before we even contacted Rich. To be frank, we needed someone to assist with the paperwork and file with the court. That was it. We contacted Rich in March 2024, and had an initial free consultation, after which we paid the retainer of $4,435.00. We submitted the required paperwork and financial disclosures to him shortly thereafter, and our initial paperwork was filed with the court in early May 2024. We had our next consultation with Rich at the end of August 2024, where we were essentially badgered by Rich as to the terms of financial separation that my wife and I had agreed upon. He was wanting to make changes that we were not comfortable with. Upon completion of the consultation, the agreed upon date of dissolution would be January 2, 2025, for tax purposes. The last bits of paperwork were submitted soon thereafter by us. We did not have any further communication from Rich for the rest of 2025. We were expecting a final notice in the mail or a confirmation of dissolution on the county clerk's website, but there was no further movement from our initial application on 5/8/2024 when I checked in early January 2025. We collectively emailed Rich and received no response. Finally, at the end of January 2025, Rich made contact with us and the process started again, with a brief explanation of some health things going on. There was a flurry of paperwork that we had to review. The paperwork was so poorly drafted, my wife and I had to have multiple collaborative meetings on Teams to rectify the grammatical and spelling errors on the documents, and inserts of other individual's information somehow inserted into our settlement agreement (I get that using a template is easiest but my God, try proofreading so your client isn't having to do all the clean-up). At the beginning of February, before Rich would submit the documents to the clerk of the court, he sent us the final statement of expenses saying we owed another $3,500 to Rich to complete our divorce. The statement read like something out of the DOGE wall of receipts. Billing is normally done in 15-minute increments; Rich charges you by the minute. It was interesting to find out that he actually charged us to rectify his poor clerical mistakes. Upon breaking down the charges, it apparently took Rich thirteen minutes to write a twelve-word text message to us on May 24. My 90-year-old mother can write a text faster. We negotiated it down to $3,000 and paid him so we could just end this ordeal. Rich intentionally created extra monies to be spent on mailing and courier fees, because he treated my wife and me as if we despised each other and didn't communicate. Imagine being the cause of a messy divorce when you are the supposed mediator, who is supposed to, after all, have the best interests of his clients at heart. Not the case here. read more

Finding Rich was the best thing that happened to me. My wife and I had already spent thousands of dollars with divorce lawyers and weren't getting any closer towards resolution. Rich has the acumen and experience from being a divorce lawyer, but he adds so much more. He finds compromise, humanity, compassion and fairness for divorce situations that are riddled with pain, strife and anxiety. He was very kind and patient during some very tumultuous moments. We were able to settle our divorce shortly after the 6-month California waiting period. I highly, highly recommend Rich Gordon!!!! read more

Rich was fabulous! He seamlessly navigated communication troubles between my ex and I and was able to reach resolution every time. He asked the right questions and pushed back on requests that were seemingly coming out of nowhere. My ex and I were able to mediate from start to finish in just ONE month, which was a dream scenario for all involved. I couldn't recommend Rich more! Thank you, Rich read more

My husband was descending into a deepening addiction to meth (hence the divorce). As the mediation progressed through the weeks, he became more and more delusional, paranoid, belligerent and angry. Because I had blocked all communications with him, Rich acted as intermediary and buffer to our texts, emails and calls. Poor Rich had to field all the communications between us, and became the target of my husband's increasing rage and abuse. Nonetheless, Rich handled things so calmly and professionally that he was able to deal with the screaming and abuse while walking us through the mediation. Rich is truly an amazingly mediator. He went through hell for us, and still did his job professionally, amiably and successfully. Kudos, Rich! read more

I highly recommend Rich Gordon, He was professional throughout the whole process, Answered all of my questions, And gave me a super descriptive walk through regarding the whole process and the actions i need to take in order for everything to run smoothly, Which was super reassuring, It really helped relieve the stress of going through a divorce. I will be using his services in the future, And i will recommend him to anyone around me whom needs a professional. read more

I bet everyone is sitting on pins and needles waiting on my retort to Mr. Rick V and his oh so poor example of a review for ... what... a service to verbally abuse the victim on a somewhat professional platform. well, I learned nothing about A Fairway Mediation from Mr. Rick Vs review. i was not going to write a review because if you can't say anything nice then don't say it at all. But, I am going to give you an example of my first meeting with the Richard's... aka Rich and aka Rick. My intuition told me this was a farce. After preliminary stuff we began, the first question from Rich to me was, "why did you not work for 23 years"? Let's examine this question, at this point after 23 years together, and being in his office for a divorce , WHY would it matter 'Why" I did not work. How would me not working be important enough for the mediator to ask me this? Actually, for 23 years I worked, for 23 years I maintained a beautiful home and property, took care of cars, 3 meals a day, took care of my step children when they came to visit and on and on. I did everything except the actual work Mr. Rick V performed. He did nothing else. So, I motioned for Rick to provide the answer. Rick sat there and with a smirk lied to Rich and to my face. After 23 years, Rick learned what he could do to upset me. And, this was upsetting. 23 years of narcissistic manipulation and possessive controlling mind games have taken its toll on me. Yes, I yelled because I could not believe what I was hearing. Mr. Gordon only fueled my anger. I got up to leave twice and they all but made me stay. I wanted to get this ball rolling but I had no idea the pain and torture they would put me through. Rick got off very well. He should be thanking me that this did not go before a judge. Mr. Gordon should have removed Ricks review simply for its verbal abuse and lies. read more

Rich was very helpful. He made a bad situation very tolerable. If you have to go through divorce i would recommend him.