When you begin divorce proceedings, your thoughts are usually about how to decide what is best for you, your children and your soon-to-be-ex-spouse. By choosing divorce mediation, a neutral third party will help you and your spouse work through your issues in order to end your marriage as amicably and cost-effectively as possible. However, there are many common myths surrounding the mediation process:
Myth: It is easier to hire a lawyer than go through mediation.
Fact: Going to court can be cumbersome and expensive, whereas mediation can streamline the information-gathering and decision-making process.
Myth: Mediation allows one party to dominate the other.
Fact: A good mediator will use specific techniques to address any obvious power imbalances, and stop the mediation if the behavior persists.
Myth: Mediation will make the divorce take longer.
Fact: Unless the spouses have already made decisions and agreements, hiring a lawyer to handle the divorce will almost always take as long or longer than mediation.
Myth: In mediation, the mediator will decide what is fair.
Fact: A mediator is not a judge or arbitrator. They have no power to make decisions for the divorcing spouses. Their job is to help each spouse negotiate an agreement that each of them will consider fair enough to accept.
For a divorce attorney that can walk you through the mediation process and help you determine if it can help you up with and create settlement approaches and ideas, contact the professionals at the family law firm of Richard Ross Associates.