About SettleTerms™
Built for the people who can't afford what comes next.
Every day, people call a family lawyer because they need a divorce, or a resolution about their kids. They don't know what they need to do, what issues exist, how it works. They're just scared, confused and anxious.
SettleTerms™ is the answer to that call: a platform where two people see where they stand, settle what they can, and leave with the rest on a short list. It was founded by Val Kleyman, a New York matrimonial and family law attorney, after 20 years of taking it.
Where it comes from
The most important part of any family case is knowing what each side actually wants, and finding the middle ground, before court. That is what 20 years of matrimonial and family law practice taught our founder, and it is the premise SettleTerms is built on.
People know what they want. They have no idea what's on the other side, and most are frightened of sitting down face to face to find out. So they pay a retainer, and months go by, and thousands of dollars later the two of them still don't know what each other wants, or what could have been settled without a judge.
The first part, the finding out, never needed a lawyer. It needed a way for two people to say what they want without having to say it to each other's face. That is what SettleTerms does.
A note from our founder
Why SettleTerms™ exists
I built this because of a gap I watch people fall into, every week.
It starts with a conversation. Two people sit down and try to talk about how, and why, and whose fault it was. It turns into a fight, and they both walk away from it unhappy.
And they still don't know the three things that decide everything. How the law actually works. What they even have to settle. And the big one — what the other person wants, and how far apart the two of them really are.
Then come the lawyers, and the retainers, and a bill plenty of people simply cannot pay.
If you can't pay it, you're left with no answers and no way in. That is an access-to-justice problem, and it is most of the people who call me.
If you can pay it, you spend the next few months and several thousand dollars working out what the issues are and what the other side wants — the two things you could have known at the start.
And some people skip all of it and go straight to court to fight, which drives them further apart and costs an amount neither of them saw coming.
So this is for both of those people. Information and some of the law for anyone who can't afford a lawyer — and for anyone who can, a way to narrow it down to what's actually in dispute, and often to settle the lot.
— Val Kleyman, family law attorney, 20 years
One case that explains the design
Two people came to our founder's practice with the same facts between them, then spent a year, and a good chunk of what they were arguing over, establishing them. One said the retirement account was $200,000. The other had seen a statement nearer $340,000. Nobody put those two numbers next to each other until months of letters had gone by.
Both of them knew all along. There was just no way for the process to use it.
And the arithmetic that settles most of it isn't in dispute anyway. Child support in New York is a percentage of what the two of you make. Maintenance is a formula with a cap on it. SettleTerms shows you both what those come to on your own numbers in about seven minutes, for nothing.
What's left after that is genuinely contested, but it's usually about three things, not everything. Three things is an afternoon's work. Everything is a war.
Twenty years of these cases teach that, and no family learns it in time to get any use out of it. SettleTerms hands it to people at the start.
How it is built
SettleTerms is software, engineered so that two people on opposite sides of something can trust the same tool.
A mediator with rules it cannot break.
Neutra™ is software, not a person, built on Anthropic's Claude. It is instructed never to say what to accept, never to predict a court and never to propose anything about your children, and a filter checks every reply against those rules before you see it.
Sealed rounds.
Neither of you sees the other's position until both are in. Nobody goes first, and nobody bargains against a number they've already been shown.
Arithmetic from the statute, with a date on it.
Child support and maintenance come from New York's own formulas. Every figure carries the date it was last checked, and an automated check fails the build the day one goes stale.
Read line by line.
Every legal statement on this site was read and approved by a New York matrimonial and family law attorney before it went live, and the site keeps a record of what was reviewed and when.
Tested before it ships.
More than two thousand automated checks run on every change before it reaches the site, including ones that fail the build if a page tells either of you what to do.
Built to keep nothing it does not need.
Your conversations with Neutra™ are never stored. Your answers to the safety questions are never stored. Nothing you enter is used to train any AI model.
Who it's for
Five kinds of people call a family lawyer. SettleTerms is built for all of them.
- People who can’t afford large legal fees.
- People who could, and would rather not.
- People who are amicable and want to stay that way.
- People who want a roadmap instead of a fight over everything.
- People who don’t want to start a war by raising all this with their partner.
If you're one of them, this was made with you in mind. Nothing here is meant to make you feel like the wrong one.
What it will never do
None of this is caution for its own sake. It's the reason two people on opposite sides of something can both sit down with the same tool and trust it.
It won't tell either of you what to take.
It'll show you what the law works out to, and what each option is worth in real money. It won't say which one to pick. That's advice about a live dispute, and nobody here is representing you.
It won't guess what a court would do.
Not the outcome, not the odds. A confident guess put in front of two people without lawyers would decide the case on its own, and it'd sometimes be wrong.
It suggests nothing about your kids.
It'll explain custody, lay the usual schedules out on a calendar, and write down what the two of you decide. It won't propose one. Your children aren't signing this, and a court looks after their side of it separately.
Neither of you sees the other's answers first.
Both sets appear at the same moment. Nobody goes first, and nobody ends up bargaining against a number they've already been shown.
It won't steer you to anyone, including our founder's practice.
If the two of you can't settle everything, you take what you did settle to a mediator or an attorney of your own choosing, or find one through the New York State Bar Association or LawHelpNY. Nobody is assigned to you. Val Kleyman has a practice of his own, and SettleTerms sends nobody there. A platform people trust is worth more than the handful of cases it might send his way.
Who's behind it
SettleTerms is built and run by SettleTerms LLC, founded by Val Kleyman, a New York matrimonial and family law attorney of 20 years. His practice told the software what it had to do. The software is what you're using.
It is independent. No investor, no law firm and no fee from anyone shapes what it does, so nothing here is built to satisfy anyone but the two people using it. And the arithmetic comes from New York's own statutes rather than from anyone's opinion, because a formula can be checked and an opinion can't.
Have your own attorney read anything before you sign it. SettleTerms is built to make that review short, not to replace it.
Find out where you stand before anyone bills you for it.
About seven minutes, on your own. Nobody gets contacted, and nothing goes to anyone else because you started.
See where you stand →This is not your lawyer.
Using SettleTerms does not make Val Kleyman, or anyone here, your attorney. Nothing on this site is legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created by using it. Each of you is strongly encouraged to have your own attorney read anything before you sign it.