- About LCRC
- How We Can Help
- FAQ
- Mediation Guides
- Why Us
- Blog
- Contact Us
Lerner Conflict Resolution Center offers comprehensive mediation and restorative services in an environment that facilitates a peaceful and positive communication process. We serve Orange County cities such as Irvine, Tustin, Orange, Mission Viejo, as well as Los Angeles and San Diego counties.
Hiring a mediator may cost a fraction of what you might spend on hiring a lawyer
I believe Andrew truly cares about helping his clients find a resolution. He is patient, will take time to explain the mediation process and he listens to his clients. Even if you don’t use Andrew, he is a great resource and an expert in his field.
We look forward to working with you to help resolve your conflict. Our mediators are ready to assist you and your family.
Child Custody:
Learn a little about the fundamentals of child custody before mediation and become acquainted with the phrases the divorce mediation expert will use during your session. If necessary, ask your mediator ahead of time about the legal aspects of child custody and what type of custody options may be available to the co-parents.
Child Support: Your mediator should be familiar with the state’s child support requirements and will typically follow the formula to establish the final child support amount. Prepare a discussion of any costs specific to your children, such as out-of-pocket medical bills or payments for extracurricular activities and the allocation of child tax credits among the parents.
Debt & Division of Property: Both partners will likely create a property and financial worksheet before mediation. You’ll decide during talks which assets are part of the marital property and which, if any, belong to each spouse separately. Following that, the divorce mediator will assist you in deciding how to divide your shared assets.
Spousal Support: Before going to your mediation session, you should thoroughly examine your income and financial commitments if you think you’ll require spousal support (also known as “alimony” or “maintenance”). If you don’t know where to begin, a divorce lawyer can explain the support computations and rules in your state to you.
Insurance Coverage: All of your insurance policies, including your medical, auto, property, and umbrella policies, should be discussed in terms of ownership and potential transfers. Make sure you’re prepared to discuss how each of you will continue coverage. In any divorce, health insurance typically becomes a key concern for at least one party.
Retirement Accounts: Retirement savings are frequently a couple’s primary financial resource after the marital home. It might be challenging to divide retirement funds during a divorce. Before going to mediation, each spouse must reveal their 401(k), 403(b), pension, and any other retirement accounts to the other. In most cases, a “domestic relations order” or “qualified domestic relations order” (QDRO) is required to share a retirement account (DRO). If you want an order made for you, you and your spouse may have to employ a QDRO preparation service or a pension specialist.
Further Communication: The divorce mediator will assist you in ironing out the specifics. Based on this, you must be ready to talk about what happens if someone doesn’t comply with the terms of the agreement, the process to share tax details, who will shoulder the legal costs, how to settle disagreements, and the best communication channels moving forward.
Other Issues: Consider any extra challenges that are specific to your family. Are they a point of contention now, or will they be in the future. By discussing them now, you can prevent problems down the road.
Tolerance, an open mind, plus understanding what you would not compromise on. These things will help ensure that you make the best of the process while getting through the day with the least stress.
In addition to deciding whether to mediate, you must also choose the right divorce mediation specialist who will help and guide you and your ex through the procedure.
It’s never prudent to impatiently select a divorce mediator who appears first in the online search results or offers exceptionally cheap services. It’s critical to exercise caution when entrusting your divorce to mediators. You will have to address complicated problems throughout the negotiation process, and doing so successfully takes knowledge that a mediator can only acquire through formal education, professional certifications, ongoing training, and years of practical experience.
The single most crucial reminder in our checklist is to choose a highly qualified and experienced mediator. Be sure to evaluate and select a competent professional. This will ensure your divorce resolution is as seamless and economical as possible while you avoid prolonged courtroom litigation.
Engage in divorce mediation with attention and tolerance, and be prepared to take independent action. Some people expect legal counsel from mediators or believe that the mediator will give them orders during the session.
Taking this into account, you should clearly understand the role of a divorce mediator. They will only guide you and facilitate the mediation process of identifying, comprehending, discussing, negotiating, and resolving all of the issues in your situation. But they will not impose any orders or take sides.
The neutral mediator will encourage and inform both parties on matters can include parenting plan/ timesharing, alimony/spousal support/spousal maintenance, child support, division of debts and marital property, and more. Divorce mediation is a way to resolve disputes in a less formal and more collaborative manner between spouses.
The mediator’s objective is to assist you in coming to a settlement that you both consider fair. Based on this, divorce mediators won’t offer you legal counsel or direction. You will make all decisions and ultimately control the final result during a divorce mediation session.
Since mediation is a consensual procedure, it will fail if you or your partner are unwilling to collaborate or actively participate. For instance, mediation won’t work if your spouse wants a divorce and you agree to mediate only if they handle all the technicalities.
Both parties must be equally involved and prepared to compromise for this step to be a good option for their divorce. Some divorcing couples are stubborn and rigid in their approach, affecting the session’s outcome and resulting in angst and unpleasantness in some cases. But for any mediation to be successful, both of you must be willing to make concessions to establish a middle ground.
Always prepare as much as possible and gather all the necessary paperwork for your divorce mediation. It may take more than a day for even the most cordial of couples to agree on issues relating to their divorce. Many couples going through a divorce only realize how many different factors need to be considered once they and their mediator review those factors.
But every mediation is different. Divorces can be finalized quickly in some instances while they are drawn out in others. While it may be tempting to rush into divorce proceedings, patience is frequently crucial in mediation. It’s also worth keeping in mind that although mediation might take a few days or weeks, a court matter can drag on for months or years, and the divorce case outcome will happen much later.Even if both parties come into mediation agreeing on significant matters like child support and property division, they may later find themselves at odds over lesser-known details. Child custody and child support arrangements that each spouse would desire are not always the ones that the judge will approve.
Mediators assist divorcing couples in crafting comprehensive agreements that satisfy the court’s requirements and reduce the likelihood of further litigation. Therefore, the mediator will likely bring up points that neither you nor your spouse has considered.
Surprisingly, many couples have fundamental disagreements about such seemingly little matters as the valuation of particular possessions and how to divide parental responsibilities. Sometimes things like the kids’ vacations and holiday timings become contention points during these sessions, and mediators have experience handling these during their sessions.
Couples can better manage their emotions during mediation if they go into it expecting to have conflicts. The mediator can strike a better balance between the couples’ areas of collaboration and dispute, allowing them to create a positive momentum while building trust before confronting the most contentious topics if they are identified early.Sometimes couples must go over financial, legal, and identification paperwork before moving forward with mediation. The mediation process can start faster if both parties find and copy/scan the following official papers before their first mediation session. You will need many different documents and supporting paperwork. For a list of common requests for information in divorce mediation click here.
If you and your ex are willing to explore the less stressful and more practical path of mediation for your divorce, please get in touch with the seasoned mediation professionals at Lerner Conflict Resolution Center. We will help you schedule and plan everything for your first session.
In our experience, it is possible to finalize divorce settlements more quickly if both parties are well-prepared and follow the items and recommendations included our comprehensive mediation checklist. Contact our dedicated California divorce mediators at (949) 694-4245 or reach us online to discuss your divorce and family law matters.To learn more about our services or to book a consultation