Courts

• Lengthy & time consuming



• Judges have little time to hear the details of your case, often less than 5 minutes



• Scheduling conflicts between courts and litigants cause expensive delays



• You may only get a minute or two to testify about your case



• Unpredictable outcomes



• You may have to make decisions about settlement in a split second in a crowded hallway



• No confidentiality-all court files are public records. Soon, they will be available online



• Costly--each hour your lawyer spends waiting, you pay, even if no progress on your case is made



• Stressful



• Courts by their adversarial nature encourage combat, which is not conducive to a health family life after the legal proceedings are over

Mediation

• You determine the schedule and issues



• You control the cost, which is usually about 1/10 to 1/3 the cost of a typical divorce case



• You make the decisions that you'll be living with



• You have the flexibility of taking time to consider how a decision will affect your family in the long term. You can try out agreements before you sign the Judgement Agreement



• Confidential



• You control the outcome, and because of this, agreements made in mediation typically work better than those negotiated in the courthouse hallway minutes before a divorce trial



• You can always go to court if it doesn't work



• Cost-effective



• Faster



• Less stressful



• Healthier for your and your family, since part of mediation is learning to communicate better, which is especially important when children are involved