Mediation is a resolution process recognized by the courts as an effective and rewarding alternative to litigation. Mediation is a less contentious, future-oriented process focused on workable, mutually acceptable outcomes so you and your children can get on with your lives. It is a voluntary alternative dispute resolution process involving both parties with a neutral third party, a mediator. Mediation is always client-driven, with the mediator as your facilitator. An experienced mediator will draw out options, seek to discover important issues and work through emotions to create a peaceful solution. The purpose and benefit of mediation are to avoid adversarial relationships and to create a peaceful agreement during a difficult time in life. Mediation allows you to direct money toward your dreams and children’s futures instead of your lawyer’s offshore account.

All too often, divorce proceedings are driven more by the lawyers than the couples. If your lawyer or your spouse’s lawyer thinks one party has to lose in order for another to win, the only real winners tend to be the lawyers. After all, the more drawn out and contentious a divorce is, the more billable hours they accumulate. This is a dysfunctional system. Do you want to spend tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers in the hopes that you’ll be vindicated, or do you want to get on with your lives?

Litigation allows the courts to decide the outcome of your conflict and generally involves an attorney for each party. Litigation is time consuming, emotionally draining, expensive, and unpredictable. With litigation, you are never certain of your outcome until a judge or jury decides who is right and who is wrong.

By nature of their training, attorneys seek to represent the best interest of their clients. A lawyer can only represent one party, and their job is to advocate for their one client. Thus, when a husband and wife both obtain attorneys, each one seeks to represent his or her best interest. This can quickly lead to an adversarial relationship and a costly divorce.

A mediator, however, is a neutral third party. A mediator helps both sides reach an agreement that is best for both of them. A mediator helps both parties remain in control of the process and the outcome.

If you’re like most people who walk in my door, you may not have any experience with mediation. Because divorces are so often portrayed in the media and on television as a combative, protracted process that takes place in a courtroom with combative attorneys and weepy couples, many people assume that that’s “just the way divorce is.”

Mediation generally isn’t as exciting as that—and that’s a good thing, but it may leave you feeling dark about what mediation looks like. Hopefully, you have some idea about the benefits of mediation by now, so let’s talk about what it looks like in practice.

A mediator is an impartial, neutral facilitator whose job is to assist both parties (as opposed to one or the other, as attorneys do), so I will meet with both of you, in person or on Zoom, for as many sessions as we need to talk through your issues. Some couples also have their own attorneys with them at mediation, but generally, it’s just the three of us.