Five Important Facts About Divorce Mediation
Fortunately, divorce is not something that you generally go through very often in your life. A divorce is never exactly expected or planned for so when you decide you are ready to move forward, you likely have a lot of questions about the process. Most individuals assume that the only way to settle a divorce is to go through the court system. However, divorce mediation has become a very viable option for settling all terms of a divorce, without having to set foot in a courtroom. If you are not familiar with how divorce mediation works, here are five important facts that can provide some information to help you decide
Over the last several years, the courts in Minnesota have started to require that couples attempt an alternative dispute resolution service like divorce mediation before moving forward with litigation. You may wonder why the courts are trying to push couples away from the traditional court system. Here are some of the reasons:
Over the last several years, more and more couples have looked for alternative ways to settle the terms of a divorce. Litigation has been the default process for many years, forcing couples to hire individual lawyers to represent them in court and spending a lot of time and money in the process. The most popular and effective alternative to litigation is divorce mediation, which allows couples to work with a neutral mediator to settle the terms of a divorce including division of property, child custody and spousal/child support. Rather than leave these major decisions in the hands of a judge, who can only learn so much
You may be surprised to learn that the Minnesota court system encourages all couples who are beginning the divorce process to use mediation instead of litigation to settle the issues between you. The legal system is backed up with cases and simply cannot schedule in a timely manner. Mediation has been proven to be an effective and efficient way to settle the terms of a divorce including child custody, division of joint property and spousal maintenance and/or child support.
You may already know that the Minnesota court system recommends that all couples try mediation to resolve the terms of a divorce before attempting litigation. You may wonder why that is the recommendation. Mediation is less expensive and takes less time than litigation and that is certainly part of the reason. What you might not be aware of is just how successful mediation is. Mediation can be more than 85% effective in divorce cases, even when child custody is a factor. Both parties are often more satisfied with the outcome and the results are more long lasting. That is a very high success rate, especially given that many couples enter the divorce process with…
If you are planning for a divorce and considering mediation as a tool to resolve the terms of your settlement, you may have questions about the divorce mediation process. When we think of divorce, we often envision a couple on 2 different sides of a courtroom with attorneys pleading to a judge about custody and dividing your joint assets. In fact, mediation offers you an entirely different pathway when it comes to settling the terms of your divorce – one that costs less, is less stressful and that is less emotionally taxing. In addition, divorce mediation allows you to make the decisions for your family rather then a judge.
