Is the process difficult?

A lawyer should serve to enhance your mediation experience and make it more productive, not more difficult, adversarial & contentious.  In order for your lawyer to help you effectively through the mediation process, the lawyer must be committed to this non-adversarial process and your desire to reach a resolution outside of Court.  Often mediators have a list of lawyers they trust to respect the mediation process and the unique resolutions their clients reach through that process.

A lawyer should not make your experience more difficult, rather a lawyer will help make the process more productive and robust.  For example, you and your spouse may reach an agreement without realizing that an element of your agreement is not feasible under the law.  A lawyer will identify that element, provide an explanation and encourage you to return to mediation to improve that portion of the agreement.  Where a mediator can explore with you options for financial support, he or she can only do that based on the income & expense information provided by each spouse.  While a lawyer can help you ensure that you’ve identified all of the income sources & expenses that you & your spouse must provide each other so that you can have a more complete discussion around those support options.  Lastly, a lawyer can draft and/or review the Separation Agreement before it’s submitted to the Court, to reduce the risk it will be rejected by the Court if the Judge has concerns.

A lawyer can be a valuable support professional, who makes the divorce experience go more smoothly and give you confidence to engage productively in the mediation process.

| photo by Tushar Rathour on unsplash