How Mediation Can Help You Obtain a Cheap Divorce
A Cheap Divorce is possible!
In litigation, one of you must legally sue the other in court to obtain a divorce. In doing so, you become adversaries. When a couple is heading toward divorce, this adversarial relationship often makes things even worse. Mediation is a process that attempts to remove your dispute from the adversarial arena of the courthouse. The goal of mediation is to allow you to work together to settle your divorce rather than place you in a position of battling your adversary.
If you choose to follow the traditional path through adversarial litigation, you will each hire lawyers who will fight it out on your behalf much like they did in the old west with hired gunfighters. In adversarial litigation you stand on the sidelines while you watch the gunfighters (lawyers) battle – and, of course, pay your gunfighter whether you win or lose the fight.
Mediators work together with people to avoid the battle. You work with your spouse to settle the terms of your family dispute sensibly and in a business like manner. A mediator is trained to help you reach a fair agreement while reducing the confrontation between you and your spouse as much as is possible.
The mediator’s role is to guide you toward settlement. He helps you gather all the information you need to make informed decisions, keeps you on track as he leads you through the legal issues, suggesting options that you may not have thought of.
Mediation Differs From Litigation in Several Major Respects:
• Mediation allows you to obtain a cheap divorce. You pay one mediator $150 per hour to talk to you each directly instead of paying two divorce attorneys $350 per hour ($700 total per hour or more) to talk at each other.
• Mediation is less adversarial. Your mediator works to achieve “win-win” solutions while a divorce attorney works to achieve “win-lose” solutions.
• The participants make their own decisions; lawyers and judges stay in the background.
• The participants work out support and payment of debts by examining their funds and options realistically and cooperatively, rather than by making accusations and demands based only on their individual needs.
• Mediation is more creative and flexible. Instead of following the boilerplate provisions usually applied by lawyers and judges, couples arrange for their children’s future care and divide their property in accordance with their family’s needs and their own sense of fairness.
• Mediation is private; the participants need not recount in an open courtroom all of the problems that brought on their divorce.
You can take control of your families future and avoid expensive court appearances. Yes! A cheap divorce is possible. We can help!