How to Prepare for Your Divorce Mediation?
Mediation is a valuable legal tool that can be used to help you get through a divorce. Indeed, many divorcing couples in Florida use mediation to help resolve difficult conflicts. Mediation is used to resolve many legal disputes, including business disagreements, but it can be particularly valuable in family law cases. This is because the process emphasizes working together and finding mutually beneficial solutions. In many divorce cases, couples actually share many mutual interests. Collaborative solutions can often be found with the appropriate direction. If you are entering a divorce mediation in Orlando, you cannot do so on a whim. Proper preparation is critically important. If you go into a divorce mediation without being prepared, the process might fail to produce results or you may end up with a bad settlement that does not properly protect your interests.
Four Tips to Help Your Prepare for a Divorce Mediation
- Know Your Goals
Far too many people enter divorce mediation proceedings without truly understanding what they want to get out of the process. Before you begin negotiating with your spouse, you need to clarify your interests in your own mind. Please be sure to consider all issues that are relevant to your divorce, including, child custody, the division of assets and any potential spousal support payments. Additionally, you should also make an effort to ensure that your goals are realistic. If you enter a divorce mediation with unrealistic goals, you are unlikely to make real progress.
- Consider Some Settlement Points
One of the best ways to start making progress in a divorce mediation is to start by tackling some of the easier issues. By doing this, you can begin to create an important sense of trust and some overall momentum. If there is an issue that you think could be easily settled, be ready to start there. Further, if there are concessions that you are willing to make to your spouse, have them ready so that they can be deployed at the right moment.
- Be Ready to Walk Away
In Florida, mediation is fully voluntary process. You are not required to reach a settlement during mediation. You can leave the table at any time. You may want to take an hour-long break, you may want to walk away and try mediation again another day, or you may want to walk away and look for an alternative method to resolve your divorce. Regardless, it is important that you know when to wrap things up. Sometimes, couples stay at mediation for too long and end up causing additional hurt feelings and damage to the divorce settlement process.
- You Should Be Represented By an Attorney
Finally, you should never handle divorce mediation on your own. You need an experienced attorney by your side throughout the entirety of the process. To learn more about what our team can do for you during your divorce mediation, please contact the Law Offices of Steve W. Marsee today at 407-521-7171. Our family law team has the skills and experience to help protect your rights and interests. We serve clients throughout the Orlando region, including in Lake County, Seminole County, Orange County and Osceola County.
Resource:
leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0000-0099/0044/0044.html
