Mediation

Mediation is the alternative. You still each have an attorney for legal advice and filing. What changes is that the decisions get made by you, in a room, with a trained neutral helping you get there — usually for a fraction of the cost and in a fraction of the time.

—   Custody and legal decision-making

—   Parenting time schedules, including holidays, school breaks and travel

—   Child support

—   Division of property and assets

—  Division of debt

—   Spousal maintenance

—   The practical questions that derail people — the house, the dog, the retirement accounts, who tells the children

—   Cost. Mediation is substantially cheaper than a litigated divorce. Most of the expense in a contested case is attorney time spent on conflict.

—   Speed. Court calendars are the bottleneck. Mediation moves at the speed of the two of you.

—   Control. You know your family, your work patterns, your children's temperaments and your finances better than any judge will after a hearing. A judge applies a standard. You can build something that actually fits.

—   Privacy. Mediation is confidential. Litigation is a matter of public record.

—  The children. This is the one that matters most. The research on divorce is consistent — the damage to children correlates far more strongly with the level of parental conflict than with the separation itself. Mediation is designed to lower that conflict. You will be co-parenting with this person for years. How you get through this shapes all of it.

Initial contact. Call and we will explain the process and answer questions before anyone commits.

Getting set up. You choose an individual mediator or a co-mediation team, and we gather the financial and family information needed.

Sessions. Usually several, working through issues in a sensible order. Neither party is put on the spot and either can pause.

Agreement. Points of agreement are documented as you go, producing a memorandum of understanding.

Legal completion. Your attorneys review the agreement and file it.

Some people arrive at mediation still uncertain. If that is you, it is worth knowing that we also offer couples counseling, and that some couples use it to reach a decision either way rather than to save a marriage by default. There is no pressure in either direction, and your couples counselor and your mediator would not be the same person.

Mediation depends on both parties being able to negotiate freely. Where there has been domestic violence, intimidation or coercive control, that may not be possible, and mediation can be actively unsafe. Please tell us if this is your situation — confidentially — and we will discuss whether it is appropriate and what the alternatives are.

FAQ