If you have been ordered into mediation by the court as part of your divorce, it can feel like just another thing that’s demanding your attention and delaying something that you really want: to bring your marriage to an end. But it’s helpful if you can view this as a positive step that allows you to resolve serious disputes more quickly, cheaply, and less adversely than you otherwise could. A divorce lawyer in San Mateo can help you better understand all the benefits of mediation and approach your mediation in a way that will move everything along as quickly as possible.
From a Divorce Lawyer in San Mateo: How Can Mediation Help Resolve Divorce Disputes?
It Allows Your Family to Keep Control
If you take everything about your divorce into the courtroom, then essentially you are putting your future into someone else’s hands. You’re asking the court to make decisions on how your property will be divided or how your children’s lives will go in the future. As good as the intentions of the court may be, you have no idea what the outcome will be, and the entire process is highly stressful. One of the important benefits of mediation is that it gives you control. You and your spouse get to decide the important issues and come up with solutions that work for both of you as well as for your children.
How does this help you resolve a dispute? Well, consider that few things can make a person feel more adversarial or cause them to dig in their heels harder than feeling as if they are losing control. If your spouse is battling you in court to get what they want, things are likely to get heated, and it might be harder for disputes to get resolved. But if you and your spouse are talking through things from a place of control and power, where the two of you are making the decisions instead of a judge, it takes some emotion and frustration out of the situation so that it’s easier to resolve a dispute.
It’s All More Confidential
Court proceedings are typically not confidential. If you do need to keep certain things private, you can talk to your divorce lawyer in San Mateo about a few options for asking the court to make some things private, but in general, this is not a given and is difficult to get.
Depending on your situation, you may not want the negative media attention on what you’re going through or the possibility that your finances and other personal details are public for anyone who cares to look them up in the court records. When you’re in mediation, any agreements that you make are confidential.
You and your spouse have to agree if you want a detail to be made public, and this makes it possible for you to discuss some very sensitive issues quite frankly. The mediator and your lawyers will not be permitted to discuss your private matters anywhere, so this is a golden opportunity to actually talk about things that feel very private and which you may be reluctant to discuss in a public courtroom. That can make it easier to find a resolution.
There Are Neutral People Committed to Helping You
Whenever you enter mediation, you’re being helped by a truly neutral party. Obviously, neither you nor your spouse are neutral in a divorce, and while your lawyer is certainly objective and better able to look at things less emotionally than you might be, obviously you still want your lawyer to be on your side.
The mediator is not on anyone’s side and can help the entire process to feel balanced. In some cases, you may even have more than one mediator. One person may be your mediator for issues of child support, while another helps you with discussions over financial matters.
Having someone come alongside you who isn’t interested in promoting the rights of either party over the other and who can stay laser focused on bringing the two of you into agreement is going to go a long way towards resolving your issues quickly and smoothly. Meanwhile, you do have your lawyer watching over your interests to ensure that any agreement or compromise is actually in your best interests.
Get to a Resolution More Quickly
It’s tough going to court for a divorce, and especially if you work and have kids. The court systems themselves are very slow, and, depending on the schedule, you might have to wait weeks or even months just to get in for a hearing. This process can feel like it simply goes on forever. Not only does that disturb your peace of mind and make it harder for you to think clearly about all the important issues of your divorce, but it may also inadvertently cause you or your spouse to have trouble reaching a resolution.
For one thing, if the entire process feels as if it’s just extending forever, then what’s the harm of pushing back on every single little item? If you feel like it’s never going to be resolved, there’s no strong incentive to get to the end. Instead, you might feel rather hopeless and disincentivized to get an agreement hammered out. Additionally, the longer a divorce stretches out, the more likely it is that everyone involved will get frustrated and angry. Frustration and anger simply do not help when you’re trying to resolve a dispute.
Save Some Money
It’s well known that mediation is usually cheaper than taking your divorce completely through the court system. Not only is litigation expensive in itself, but it’s also unpredictable, and you just don’t know what the final costs may add up to. Even if you have good reason to believe everything could be resolved in just one hearing, there’s no guarantee that it won’t end up being a lot more.
Mediation is almost always cheaper for everyone involved, and when you’re not bleeding money, you’re going to find it easier to resolve a dispute and to think clearly about your future.
Help You Put Your Children First
Divorce is very hard on everyone going through it, but the people suffering most are always the children. The children are living in limbo, burdened by stress that they did not create and wondering where they’re going to live, whether their relationships with their parents will continue as they’ve always known, who they’re going to live with, and a lot more. Most children assume that divorce is at least partially their fault, even when they are assured that’s not true. To add insult to injury, if you and your spouse are involved in constant negotiations, and especially acrimonious ones, you may be inadvertently neglecting your children because your time and emotional energy is being eaten up.
When you go into mediation, the mediators will talk to you not as two litigants but as two parents. The mediator will help you keep your children’s needs and best interests at the forefront of your mind, and this can help you steer away from the issues that are making you angry and focus on the best resolution for your children.
There are a lot of benefits to going into mediation, and your divorce lawyer can make sure that each mediation session is a helpful one that you are prepared for. Call us now at Seeley Family Law in San Mateo for family law help anywhere in the Bay Area.