Benefits of Divorce Mediation

With Divorce Resolutions, LLC, Colorado Center for Divorce Mediation, you and your spouse or co-parent meet together in a safe and comfortable environment with a Colorado attorney-mediator who serves as your neutral and impartial mediation professional. Your family mediator will guide and assist you in considering each of the issues the legal system requires you to resolve — as part of your Colorado divorce, child custody or parenting, or child support dispute.

What are the advantages of this process of family and divorce mediation, over the traditional adversarial approach to divorce or of litigation of parenting and support disputes? Many! This approach is entirely different.

What Does Divorce Mediation Entail?

Mediation is a dispute resolution process. For people going through a divorce, mediation can serve as an alternative to pursuing litigation and going through a lengthy, costly trial.

During this process, you and your spouse or co-partner will meet with a trained, neutral mediator. The mediator will listen to you and your spouse and work with you to come to a mutually agreeable solution regarding the terms of your divorce.

You’ll cover several topics during your mediation sessions:

• Parental responsibility arrangements and time-sharing plans for your children
• The financial support that each of you will provide for your children
• The division of your marital assets and liabilities
• Whether either of you will pay alimony and the amount of those payments

When you and your spouse are able to reach an agreement, the mediator will draft an important document called a Memorandum of Understanding. This will contain all of the agreements that you made during mediation.

Divorce Mediation’s Advantageous Style

Your discussions are private, the atmosphere is comfortable and informal, and the process is empowering and efficient.

In addition, consider the following other advantages of family and divorce mediation:

Divorce Mediation Is Cost-Effective

Family and divorce mediation is extremely cost-effective. Your separate meetings with separate attorneys, their telephone calls with you and each other, settlement conferences and preparations for court — all these adjuncts to the litigated approach to divorce necessitate a great deal of two professionals’ time and expense.

And, the legendary costs of divorce trials, even so-called temporary orders hearings, can quickly deplete any assets you have accumulated during your marriage. In contrast, mediation, relying as it does on direct communication and the mediator’s skill in keeping the dialog constructive and focused, accelerates the conclusion of divorce or parenting disputes. Almost always, this affords very substantial cost savings, making divorce mediation a truly affordable alternative.

Divorce Mediation Preserves Control

Family and divorce mediation preserves control over your individual and family’s futures. Together, you and your spouse or co-parent, will make the choices for the future:

• How you will make major decisions about your children
• How you will share time with them
• How you will arrange for your children’s support or for your own support
• How property should be divided and debts assigned

All these matters are determined by you, directly, and without control by lawyers or orders of judges.

Divorce Mediation Allows For More Satisfying Solutions

Cooperative face-to-face problem-solving often allows for more detailed planning and more creative and satisfactory outcomes. For example, we work not only with readily available software that helps you determine child support consistent with Colorado law, but also with much more powerful computer tools to help you consider, with your accountant or tax advisor, the impact of taxes on your after-divorce situations.

In the collaborative work of family mediation, it is much easier to discuss your separate visions of your after-divorce needs and circumstances, and then structure agreements to achieve significant tax savings for both parties. Often, this sort of cooperative planning will pay for the entire costs of your mediated divorce!

Divorce Mediation Promotes Child-Focused Parenting

The style and approach of family and divorce mediation helps to focus on your children’s needs and to improving your parenting relationship over time. Unlike many other disputes, couples (especially those with younger children) are required to co-parent for many years. As such, they often have a compelling interest in managing their relationship with each other — with dignity and respect. Family mediation promotes this objective, with the obvious benefit to your children and to your own sense of personal peace.

Recent research findings confirm the astonishing and persistent benefits of even a modest commitment to divorce mediation rather than litigation, in resolving divorce or child custody disputes. If you have children, we urge you to consider this research (by following the above link)!

Divorce Mediation Is Confidential

All of your settlement discussions in family and divorce mediation are protected by Colorado law as absolutely confidential. It is “safe” to consider options and alternatives in mediation without fear that your statements or questions or concerns might be used against you in court or elsewhere. Your family’s circumstances remain undisclosed as well, rather than discussed in court papers or in open court.

See our articles on confidentiality in Colorado divorce mediation, Colorado mediators’ ethics codes and Colorado mediation model standards.

Divorce Mediation Saves Time and Stress

Divorce litigation can take a long time. Depending on your circumstances, it can take anywhere from 9 months to 2 years for your case to reach a conclusion! Mediation is a much faster process, often taking only a few months or less.

By choosing a shorter method to resolve important issues like parental responsibilities and asset division, you can save a lot of time and stress.

Divorce Mediation Can Help Avoid Future Legal Issues

When a judge or attorney is in charge of making all of the major decisions in your divorce, conflicts are likely to arise later on. You may find yourself back in court with your former spouse or co-parent to change the terms of your judgment, or to resolve an issue if one of you violates your agreement.

By participating in mediation, you and your spouse or co-parent are responsible for making decisions that are in your best interests. Because you set the terms of your agreement, you are more likely to be satisfied with its outcome and less likely to engage in future legal battles.

Divorce Mediation Is Easier for Children

It’s no secret that divorce can be a significant and stressful process. For children, these psychological and emotional effects can feel compounded. Intensive, lengthy divorce litigation could have a destructive impact on the young people who witness it.

The purpose of mediation is to work toward the best outcome for the family. Because it is so fast and efficient, your children won’t be caught in the middle of a lengthy trial. As such, this process is often much easier for children.

Divorce Mediation Happens on Your Own Time

When you engage in divorce litigation, you need to follow the court system’s schedule for your proceedings. Courts can be busy, and your court dates will likely be assigned without regard to your own schedule. You’ll likely need to make arrangements for work, childcare, and other responsibilities in order to make these appointments.

One of the major benefits of divorce mediation is that it happens on your own time. You and your spouse or co-parent will be able to schedule your sessions at a time that is most convenient for you, not the court.

Favorable Experience Of Choosing Divorce Mediation

You might ask, however: How does it work in practice, in the real world? Listen to one of our clients describe how mediation was a positive choice for his Colorado family and its divorce:

“My wife and I found the mediation process a very powerful tool to reaching a resolution. Issues that could easily have escalated using separate lawyers were diffused. Our dignity and self-worth were not compromised. We left our mediators’ offices knowing that our children were well taken care of. The process was also quick as well. Two sessions were sufficient to reach agreement on complex financial and parenting issues.

Mediation far surpasses litigation. Seek mediation first. Forget that first inclination to seek the advice of a litigator. A divorce need not be an adversarial, “win-at-all-costs” event!”

-from James K., married 23 years (working with Chris of Divorce Resolutions, Colorado Center for Divorce Mediation)

For many more testimonials of divorce mediation’s power and advantages, see our website’s Client Experiences.

If this sensible, affordable process of family and divorce mediation makes great sense to you and your spouse, or co-parent, consider next: Why you should choose us to assist you — in the following section of our website, Why Choose Divorce Resolutions, Colorado Center for Divorce Mediation.