How Mediation Differs from Litigation

Divorce litigation requires a lawsuit. In litigation, one of you must sue the other in order to dissolve your marriage. In doing so, you become adversaries.

If you choose to follow the traditional path through this adversarial system, you will each hire lawyers who will fight on your behalf like old west gunfighters, paid to intimidate and run off the other side. Each gunfighter, highly skilled in the intricacies of the fast draw and shooting, will try to win by seizing for his client as much as possible from the other side. You will stand on the sidelines while you watch the gunfighters continue to battle - and, of course, pay your gunfighter whether you win or lose the fight. Unfortunately, the wounds inflicted in the fight, don=t appear on the other gunfighter. They appear on you and your children.

Mediation is a process that attempts to remove your divorce from the adversarial arena of the courthouse. Although you can=t avoid a lawsuit, you can avoid the bloody battle. You can choose to sit down with your spouse and a mediator and to work out the terms of your divorce fairly and sensibly in a business like manner. You can replace your gunfighter with a wise advisor who understands the value of an amicable divorce. Mediators are trained to help you reach a fair agreement with as little battling as possible.

Mediation differs from litigation in several major respects:

• Mediation is less expensive
• Mediation is less adversarial
• 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 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.