What is Divorce Mediation? – Buffalo NY Divorce Mediation
Divorce mediation is about you and your spouse making your own decisions about your divorce. Instead of Courts and Attorney, divorce mediation allows you to decide the terms of your own divorce and what is best for the both of you and most importantly, your children.
In divorce mediation, you and your spouse will meet with a neutral third party, the mediator, and with their help, you will work through the issues you need to resolve so the two of you can end your marriage as amicably and cost-effective as possible. The issues covered include but at not limited to the following:
1. Distribution of Property (Assets/Liabilities)
2. Child Custody and Parenting Time
3. Child Support/Maintenance
4. Retirement
5. Taxes
Divorce mediation with Buffalo NY Divorce Mediation allows you as a former couple with the help of the mediator, to works out agreements on the issues that are necessary for you and your former spouse to successfully live apart.
When it becomes difficult to reach an agreement or you run out of ideas how to resolve issues, that is when the mediator intervenes. It is the mediator’s job to help you, brainstorm ideas, provide practical alternatives to resolve your disagreements, and assist the couple in their decision-making process. Mediators help keep the couple focused on the issues at hand, trying not to get them off track. When divorcing couples get off track and away from the above issues during mediation, arguing, name-calling and bad prior memories are brought up.
Mediation is flexible and confidential and allows you and your spouse a way to settle the conflict between you in a way that helps you to work together as parents and potentially remain friends after the divorce. If you have children, it is very important that you and your former spouse are able to co-parent even after you are divorced. Mediation has the ability to help the couple learn to communicate again, if only for the sake of the children, and make their post-divorce relationship better than their married one.
What is a Divorce Mediator?
A divorce mediator is neutral and doesn’t “work” for either parent. That means the mediator can not give advice to either party. They must remain neutral no matter what the situation. If an attorney chooses to act as a mediator then they cannot represent one or the other parties differently of preferentially.
What the mediator can do, though, is assist the divorcing couple in formulating ideas that can eventually lead to agreements that will be accepted the court eventually and be the terms by which the former couple will now live separate and apart. Because both spouses are directly participating in the negotiation process without attorney’s as middlemen or controlled by Courts and Judges, the process is more streamlined, efficient and is concluded faster and at much less expense.
Mediation is voluntary. It continues only for so long as all three of you – you, your spouse, and the mediator — want it to. Mediations can be conducted weekly, every two weeks, monthly or how ever often the couple wants them to be. This is their mediation and they decide everything in the process.
How long does divorce mediation take and what are the costs?
Divorce mediation can last several weeks or several months depending how complicated the issues are. Typically, after it will be obvious after a few mediation sessions if the couple is likely to complete the mediation process successfully. Typical divorce mediations resulting in a written and signed agreement cost between $2,000 and $5,000. Alternatively, each party hiring attorney and starting divorce litigation can costs in excess of $20,000.
Typically, it is much more cost effective for a couple to mediate their divorce that to litigate it. Please call us if you would like to discuss the mediation process further.
