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The Mediation Alternative-It Works for Some Divorces
by Jane Meyer
Your differences are irreconcilable. You file for divorce.
And thus you embark on a proces which is inevitably painful and difficult. For some couples, the process is a highly emotional, destructive conflict in which lawyers battle in the courtroom. In many cases, neither party is happy with the divorce decree handed down by the judge, and they're left bitter, having paid a high financial and emotional price.
But an increasing number of couples are seeking divorce mediation as a way of negotiating parenting, property and support issues in divorce. Even for couples who believe they cannot communicate, mediation can be a way to save heartache. Divorce mediation allows a divorcing couple to meet with a trained, neutral professional and to negotiate a divorce settlement.
There are no figures in Washington state indicating how many divorce mediations there are, or what percentage of divorce settlements are reached through mediation. But as the courts continue to be overcrowded, the trend is for couples to negotiate the terms of their own divorce through mediation.
ONE OF THE MOST important benefits of mediation is that clients become the engineers of the divorce agreement. When couples go to court, they give up control of their case to the judge, who will decide the outcome. In mediation, the couple controls the outcome. And they're more likely to abide by an agreement they fashioned, than one imposed by a third party.
Mediation almost invariably costs less than litigation. Getting that day in court is very costly: court costs for a case involving parenting and assets involving a three-day trial can easily cost $10,000.00 or even more.
MEREDITH KAPLAN is an attorney who's heard lots of horror stories about bitter, costly divorces. In fact, it was her own divorce experience that led her to law school and a family law practice. But after litigating divorce cases for two years, she became convinced that mediation was the best way to handle divorce, and now does nothing but mediation in her Mercer Island practice.
"I felt that even when we went to court and we `won,' my client didn't really win," she said.
In her own situation, her divorce proceedings and custody battle dragged on for four years, and involved 20 court appearances. And as for cost: "I had to sell my house on Mercer Island to pay the attorney fees," said Kaplan, whose children were just 1 and 4 when the process began. At one point, when she couldn't afford the attorney any more, she took over her own case and presented an oral argument on her own behalf in front of the judge - and won.
It was one of those watershed moments, which opened up new vistas in her life. "It was at that point that I could see that I could be effective," she said. "And I could see the power that attorneys have. I wanted to have that power, but use it differently." She went to night school to get a degree, and then at the age of 40, she entered law school.
"LOOKING BACK," she said "if my former husband and I had been able to talk before the attorneys got involved, if we had gotten into mediation, I think we could have avoided all the heartache. We were both scared we'd lose the kids ...we were both motivated by fear.
"The point is, it's possible to take something that's so awful, and to take all that energy and turn it into something positive," she said. That's what she tells her clients, too, as she encourages them to put that energy from conflict into negotiating a satisfactory divorce agreement.
She's found that the length of a marriage is not a determining factor in how mediation goes - nor is the amount of assets. But timing is important. Many times, one spouse is further along emotionally in handling the divorce process. In that case, it's best to have long periods in between appointments, to allow the other spouse to "catch up" or get counseling, she said.
What's key is the couple's motivation. Many times, couples come to mediation because they're exhausted from litigation and realize nobody's going to win. "At that point, they're motivated to work things out, and I help them sort out what they've really been fighting about...I try to get to the motivations behind the issues."
Ninety-five percent of the couples who begin mediation in her practice reach an agreement, Kaplan said.
Excerpt from an article in the Mercer Island Reporter
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