Divorce Mediation
Save Time, Money and your Sanity

Divorce mediation is one option that you have for completing your divorce. In this process you don’t battle your way through court proceedings to come to an agreement. Instead you and your estranged spouse work with a skilled mediator who helps you work together to reach an amicable agreement about how to divide your assets and family responsibilities. This divorce option doesn’t directly involve lawyers, however, it is a good idea to have one on retainer in case you have legal questions.

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There are a lot of benefits for using divorce mediation instead of the traditional attorney/court version of divorce. The first benefit is that it usually helps to reduce emotional trauma caused by heated courtroom divorce proceedings. This is because mediators are skilled counselors as well as family law experts so they can work with both parties to work through hurt feelings and resentment and help the two to focus on the good qualities of their former partners instead of ruminating on their faults.

The second benefit of using divorce mediation is that it alleviates some of the harmful effects of divorce on children. Children are put through an emotional ringer during a divorce. All the changes that divorce causes make kids worry about what their lives will be like after the divorce and they also worry about losing their relationships with their parents.

The problems surrounding children and divorce are compounded when the kids witness their parents fighting about the divorce. When you use a divorce mediator the mediator works with both of you to focus on what is important and they also structure the negotiations to focus on the common good instead of personal faults.

The third benefit of using divorce mediation is that it is better for you psychologically. Your divorce experiences are going to influence how you act in future relationships. If you have a bad divorce experience then you may be hesitant to enter into a new romance, or you may prevent yourself from committing to the relationship fully because you are afraid of being hurt again. On the other hand, if your experience is reasonable, then you will be more likely to try dating after divorce and establish a healthy romantic relationship again.

The fourth benefit of using divorce mediation as opposed to the traditional lawyer-court divorce format is that it is less expensive. In a traditional divorce each party has to pay for their own attorney. This can cost anywhere from a couple thousand dollars a piece to tens of thousands of dollars each, depending on the case. Good divorce mediators, on the other hand, usually charge between $2,000 and $5,000 for both parties combined.

If you are interested in divorce mediation then you need to learn about what you should look for in your mediator. The first thing you will want to learn about when shopping for a divorce mediator is to see if your state requires divorce mediators to be licensed. Many states, including California, don’t currently require this profession to be licensed.

Next you will want to find a mediator that has the proper educational background and legal experience. The type of training you will want to look for includes psychological counseling and family law. A good way to judge how qualified a divorce mediator is, is to ask them how many divorces they mediated during the last one to two years and to ask them how long they have worked as a mediator.