Orange County Divorce Mediation & Family Law Mediation

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.

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.

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.