The emotional trauma of divorce can be exacerbated when the couples chooses an adversarial approach to the legal divorce, which itself adds additional stresses over and beyond the normal grieving. When in the anger-phase of grief, it can be tempting for a spouse to become adversarial, which can easily make things worse.
Non-adversarial methods of dispute resolution, such as mediation and collaborative divorce are less likely to add to the emotional trauma, and are better suited when an ongoing relationship is contemplated, such as for future parenting.
Mediation is a growing way of resolving divorce issues. It tends to be less adversarial, allows the parties greater control and privacy, saves money, and generally achieves similar outcomes to the normal adversarial process. Also, courts will often approve a mediated settlement quickly.
Similar to the concept of mediation, but with more support than mediation, is Collaborative Law, where both sides are represented by attorneys but commit to negotiating a settlement without engaging in litigation.
There is similarity between mediation and collaborative law, in that both are facilitative processes. However, in collaborative law, the parties are fully informed about the law and the consequences of various options, and their advocates facilitate the negotiations. Visit the Austin collaborative divorce to learn more about this.
Collaborative law is an agreement from the beginning of the dispute not to go to court. Mediation is often ordered during the course of the litigation process. In mediation, the mediator is a neutral third party who doesn't represent or advise either side. Learn more about the process of collaborative divorce with the Austin collaborative divorce.
Because of the additional support of attorneys and expert neutrals, the success rate of a collaborative divorce is very high. In the rare event that the collaborative divorce process ends without the parties reaching a settlement, the collaborative lawyers become disqualified, and are replaced by new counsel.
The main reason for this is that the collaborative lawyers' sole interest will be to settle the case; and lawyers who specialize in collaborative divorce will often have additional training and skills to assist parties to settle.
Some believe that mediation may not be appropriate for all relationships, especially those that included physical or emotional abuse, or an imbalance of power and knowledge about the parties' finances, for example. Collaborative divorce, because of its additional support for parties, is better equipped to handle relationships with a history of abuse. For more information about collaborative divorce and its processes, then visit Austin collaborative divorce for details.