Increasingly, divorce mediation is becoming mandatory before couples can take their divorce to the courts.  More and more court systems are implementing this requirement as they see an increase in couples using the courts as negotiating forums or simply as launching pads for attacks and grudge resolution.  Mediation is seen as a way for couples to get this ‘out of their system’ at a minimum and possibly resolve such differences without having to tie up the court system at all. As more and more … [Read more...] about Should Mediation Be Mandatory For Divorcing Couples?

As a society, we consider a complete surrender of privacy as part of the price of fame. So when a high-profile celebrity couple makes the difficult decision to seek a divorce, it becomes open season on them as every public admission, accusation, and declaration (and in a litigated divorce, all finances and other details of your lives together) is gleefully plundered for its dark entertainment value. However, if you stop and think about it, you might notice that while the occasional juicy … [Read more...] about Why Celebrities Choose Divorce Mediation

Aside from being an incredibly emotionally stressful time in someone’s life, divorce is also incredibly complicated in terms of the legal and financial considerations it brings on. There are so many aspects to divorce to consider it is unsurprising that many are overlooked. One commonly overlooked facet to a divorce that involves a non-working spouse is the question of health coverage: If you were receiving health insurance benefits through your spouse’s employer-provided health coverage, you … [Read more...] about What Happens With Your Health Insurance After Divorce

Even when the dubious adjective ‘amicable’ is appended to it, divorce is rarely easy and never enjoyable. Divorce always represents the end of something, and that usually means there was a happier time, a beginning when everything seemed wonderful and plans were made. Divorce usually means those plans never came to fruition and along the way, emotions have soured and where there was once affection and mutual support there is often antagonism and spite. It’s certainly not uncommon for couples … [Read more...] about Taking the Sting Out of Divorce with Mediation

When discussing mediation, most people have a tendency to focus on the clear benefits that have been proven time and again: The faster resolution, the lower cost, the less-combative atmosphere.  While these are all absolutely accurate descriptions of the mediation process, they are also describing what could be termed true mediation – a mediation course that is focussed on finding common ground and guiding the parties to a mutually satisfactory agreement that satisfies all problem areas.  … [Read more...] about When Mediation Is Not Mediation

Often couples heading towards divorce dismiss mediation as an option for one simple reason: Mediation implies communication.  Some divorcing couples cannot stand to be in the same room with each other and cannot communicate in any effective way.  The damage is too severe and there is too much ‛water under the bridge,’ so to speak.  Couples in such a distressing and emotionally charged scenario think mediation is impossible due to their inability to communicate. This belief is due to a core … [Read more...] about Can Mediation Work in a Communication Breakdown?

There are many roads to divorce – not that you would know it from television and films, where divorce always, always means litigation and dramatic courtroom scenes, angry spouse shouting, lies and drama.  Litigation is rarely so exciting and it is far from the only option available to divorcing couples.  After all, emotional states vary, goals and personalities vary, and different couples require different levels and types of help coming to their final agreements.  While litigation is truly the … [Read more...] about Divorce Mediation, Collaborative Divorce and Litigated Divorce: A Comparison