Nolo's Essential Guide to Divorce - Emily Doskow [42]
Private Mediation
Most couples who can afford it hire a private mediator because of the greater flexibility and choice it allows. You select and pay your own mediator and can control scheduling, number of sessions, what can be covered, and so on.
Private mediators charge from about $100 to $400 an hour, depending on their background, experience, and location. How long your mediation takes will depend on how complicated the issues are and how well you and your spouse negotiate and compromise. With a very motivated couple and straightforward issues, just one or two sessions might be enough. If the dynamics are difficult or there are lots of complex financial or custody issues, the number of sessions could move up toward double digits.
Community Mediation
In many places, nonprofit community mediation agencies provide low-cost mediation to divorcing couples. Community mediators are nearly always volunteers. They are trained to mediate in panels of two or three mediators, and to deal with many different kinds of issues. Some of the mediators may be lawyers or therapists who mediate professionally and also donate their time; the rest are from all different walks of life.
Some community mediation services don't do family cases, deferring to mediators with family law or counseling expertise. And you probably wouldn't want to go to a community mediation service if you have retirement plans to divide or need to determine what level of support is fair. But if you and your spouse agree on most things but simply can't work out one thorny issue about your custody time-share or who gets to keep the good china, you might try community mediation for that single issue. The enormous advantage of community mediation is its very low cost.
If you use a community mediation service, you'll still need a lawyer or document preparation service to prepare your divorce papers, including your marital settlement agreement.
Therapist and Lawyer Mediators
Many divorce mediators are lawyers or therapists. Whether you prefer one over the other depends on your needs and your inclinations.
Lawyers. The major advantage of a lawyer-mediator is that you can get legal information about your divorce. A lawyer can also prepare the court forms and a settlement agreement if you and your spouse come to an agreement.
No mediator can, however, give you or your spouse legal advice. Because mediators don't represent either spouse, but work with both of you together, they can't tell either of you how to protect your own interests. They can only give legal information-for example, telling you how much child support the judge is likely to order if you don't come to an agreement yourselves. For advice about what's in your best interest, you'll need to hire a consulting attorney.
Therapists. If you've been in couples counseling, a therapistmediator may be something of a redundancy. But if you and your spouse haven't had any counseling in the process of your divorce, and you're comfortable getting legal information and advice elsewhere, a therapist-mediator might work for you-especially if you feel that there's a lot of misunderstanding and blame between you. The therapist has skills to keep a lid on that sort of thing and to support more productive communication. Therapists also tend to charge somewhat less than lawyers for mediation services.
Both. Another good option is to work with two mediators together, one lawyer and one therapist. The combination of skills that they bring to the table can really streamline the process and help you make decisions. The therapist-mediator can help you work with barriers to communication, while the lawyer-mediator keeps track of the issues that need to be decided and keeps the process moving toward a resolution. Be prepared to pay-you'll have two professionals involved, and it won't be cheap.
The best of both worlds ...
" My husband and I chose to go to mediation with a married couple