Why Choose Mediation For Divorce – San Diego Divorce Mediation
Why Choose Mediation For Divorce & Other Marital Agreements?
Because Why Ruin Your Life
Why am I a mediator? Or at least why don’t I do both mediation and litigation like every other law firm in town claims to do? The reason I choose not to represent one party in litigation lies in analytics. Having had the opportunity to compare hundreds of litigation divorces to hundreds of mediated divorces, the outcomes for mediated clients are dramatically better. My mediation clients spend less time and money, their finances remain private and confidential, they listen to each other and learn how to be better co-parents for the future, and the children benefit from more love and more property and money being available to them in the now and future.
“Mediation defeats litigation in the family law context every time like a
1987 first round knockout by Mike Tyson.”
In litigation, one lawyer represents a husband or wife and another lawyer represents the other spouse. These adversarial divorces take 1 to 3 years to resolve. And the dirty little secret is that unless you are Bill Gates, you will settle the case before trial. 98% of more of litigated divorces in our experience end in a negotiated settlement the day before your trial is set to begin. Why not just settle at the beginning?
As a mediator, we work directly with both divorcing partners, with their lawyers in the background, and most of our cases are resolved within 4-8 weeks. Yes, that is not a misprint – 4-8 WEEKS! The cost is probably 10% of what you will spend on litigation and even more importantly, the couple and their family do better in the aftermath because mediation does not drain their emotional and financial resources.
Mediation should be the primary way couples negotiate divorce settlements. Divorce isn’t a fun or easy process but there are good and bad outcomes. The bad outcomes leave parties and their children permanently damaged. Good outcomes leave people better equipped to cope and build something new in the future. The percentage of people in mediated divorce who do well is much higher than those in traditional adversarial scenarios. One example of this is that statistically, only about 5% of people who mediate their divorce end up back in court after the fact whereas litigated divorces see about 50% of the people return to court at some point to fight more. Great for lawyers, horrible for families.
Scott Levin
858-255-1321
scottlevinmediation@gmail.com
www.sandiegofamilylawyer.net
