Divorce Mediation Made Simple

Divorce Mediation can be as difficult as anything you can imagine, but Divorce Mediation can be easier than anything you ever expected. It depends, to a large extent, on the Divorce Mediator you choose and the attorney you choose (if you have one- you don’t always need to). Ideally, if you and your ex are fighting over child custody it makes sense to find a mediator who can understand and work with the strong emotions that such a conflict generates. for such matters, it is often better to find a “non-attorney” mediator, as attorneys are great with logic and adversarial conflicts but usually not as good at emotional ones.

If you feel the need for your own attorney, understand that it often makes the divorce process longer and much more expensive, even if your attorney wants to be collaborative (many aren’t). Many attorneys resist mediation, or believe mediation can be used only in very rare circumstances. To be fair, from an attorney’s background, with an attorney’s skill set, they are correct. But if you choose a “non-attorney” who understand emotions in child custody mediation, a successful agreement can not only be possible, but probable. A mediation that would end in stand-off or trial might well be settled by the right mediator ( a “non attorney”) and often without needing to retain an attorney yourself. But if you play the attorney card too soon, or find an attorney who is overly zealous, problems can develop and big problems can get bigger. I have played “clean-up” for many situations where attorneys had fought long and hard. Whether they reached agreement or no, such situations left a host of bad feelings on both sides, and an inability to co-parent cooperatively. but it doesn’t have to be. Divorce mediation can be simple, often as simple as one or two visits with the right family mediator.

Some folks in my mediation sessions do so well they wonder how they ever could have done it another way.