Discovering the Benefits of Mediation over Litigation in Divorce

I am Scott Levin, a family law attorney in San Diego, California. I help clients by specializing as a divorce mediator as I formerly litigated cases but choose to limit my divorce services so as not to litigate in court.  I focus my skills, effort and work to the niche of mediation for divorce in California because I am able to impact so many families and children by helping couples and parents navigate divorce amicably. 

This conversation peels back the layers of the divorce process, revealing how mediation often presents a more harmonious and effective path than traditional litigation.  You'll learn why rushing to lawyers might not be your best first move, as we share real-world examples where legal intervention has escalated conflicts instead of resolving them.

Join to discover the power of thoughtful communication, and why the stability of our children's lives is paramount in time of transition. Learn more about managing family dynamics through one of life's most challenging moments. 

Thanks for listening and I hope you'll continue to learn more about how you can peacefully divorce.

As a divorce mediation attorney in California, Scott Levin helps couples figure out the settlement terms and draft enforceable settlement agreements so they can divorce fairly without needing to go to court. Obtain closure peacefully through an amicable divorce. process that protects families and kids.

Visit San Diego Divorce Mediation for more information and to learn more about our mission to help divorcing couples make informed decisions and fair agreements through mediation or book a free virtual consultation.

Scott Levin, attorney, mediator, CDFA®
Chief PeaceKeeper
scottlevinmediation@gmail.com
858-255-1321
San Diego Divorce Mediation & Family Law
www.SanDiegoFamilyLawyer.net

Chapters

• 0:03 Benefits of Mediation in Divorce
• 8:40 Benefits of Mediation in Divorce
• 12:50 Sharing Personal Information With Children

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Hi, I'm Kelly Myers with First Steps Divorce, and I am so excited to be here with Scott Levin, an attorney and mediator, and what we want to do is talk about mediation today. And so, scott, as a coach, when I'm working with people who are going through divorce, I always love it when I can work with them in the beginning and when I can really kind of share information with them about different ways to get divorced, and I always tell people that I'm really biased around the fact that I think people should start with mediation, and the reason why is because the reality of it is there are very few legal issues that need to be decided in divorce. I mean, really you've got legal paperwork that needs to be filed, but that really there aren't a lot of legal decisions there is. What are you going to do with the finances? What are you going to do about support and what are you going to do about the kids? If you've got kids, well, you don't really need a lawyer for that.

Speaker 2: 1:06

What you need is somebody who really understands how to facilitate the process of making these decisions, that understands all the decisions that need to be made and that is spent time educating themselves on how to be a conflict resolution specialist and how to come up with creative ideas to solve problems, and that's what it is you need to be, you need to make, you need someone to help you understand, to identify what the issues are, like you said, help educate you about what, the ways that you could handle those issues and what they all mean, and speak you know English, as opposed to legalese to you, and then help create those solutions, those paths forward. That's them. That's exactly what you need.

Speaker 1: 1:56

Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing that people don't really recognize about mediation, two things. One is, if it doesn't work, which is very highly unlikely, I think what it was there about an 80, 85% success rate when it comes to mediation.

Speaker 2: 2:12

Yeah, it depends on the practice, Like obviously private mediation. I think a little higher, but yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:17

Yeah. So you've got the chance for a real high level of success if you get into mediation, particularly with a good mediator. But then you've got the ability, even if for some reason it doesn't work. You've gotten a lot of intel by sitting in that mediation room, right. You're kind of understanding what your spouse may be wanting. You may get an idea of what their positions are right, but you might even get an underlying and understanding of what their real needs are and that's gonna help inform you if you ultimately had to go to litigation.

Speaker 2: 2:51

Yeah. So there's a ton of advantages of mediation. Everything that you just named is obviously one of them. The other thing is that when you, a lot of people will say, hey, I wanna go through this quickly, I wanna figure this out, like we don't have a lot of disagreements, but I'm gonna hire a lawyer, he or she's gonna hire a lawyer, and then we're gonna let the lawyers kind of figure it out and we're not fighting, so it'll be fine. And then the first thing you realize that happens from there is that now you're on two lawyers timelines and you're on the court timeline, and because you're essentially litigating, but you're saying that we don't wanna go full blown, but now there's certain formalities that have to be followed, and now you hire two people to help you follow those formalities that are not used to like a shortened settlement discussion. They wanna build up to the crescendo, which is the negotiation, and in mediation we wanna get to the negotiation Like let's figure this out and then handle the legal paperwork around it, as opposed to building up for a year and a half to the getting all the stuff done first, and so you don't wanna get on a lawyer's timeline. If you guys have that situation like, yeah, we're gonna be able to figure out we don't have a complicated situation or we do, it doesn't really matter. But hiring the two attorneys now you're locked into that timeline and there ain't no getting around that timeline. These people are beyond busy. Every minute of their day is calendar. They're not gonna be responsive to communication, they're not gonna be available for your phone calls and you're not gonna be able to set meetings in the next couple of weeks. You're now hunkered down. So hiring going for mediation is a different experience. You're gonna have someone that's, if you hire the right person, it's gonna be available, that's gonna be able to get those meetings scheduled. Then that's gonna be able to work for both of you relatively quickly.

Speaker 2: 4:42

I have a case right now where a woman a vast majority of my work is a mediator, but sometimes I take on a consulting attorney one and she called me and she was really, really sad and I felt really bad for her and I wanted to help her. And she said we've been married 10 years but we got married later in life and it's not gonna be that complicated. But my husband hired a lawyer and they were gonna send me a settlement proposal but like, maybe I could just have you, hire you for a couple of hours and you could help me. And so she asked them for the settlement proposal. The settlement proposal said I take everything, you take nothing deal. That's what the settlement proposal was. So then she sorted it to me and I responded and I asked some questions because they were saying this is all separate properties.

Speaker 2: 5:32

I said, hey, can you show us how that's separate? Just the basics, not trying to fight right, just like I am coming at this from a problem solving town. You couldn't believe the response I got back. The response I got back from the other attorney was go f yourself and go f yourself and go f yourself. Now this attorney hired to help. This is the agreement they had. Let's figure this out. This is the figure out attorney on the other side. They're not figuring it out, they're perpetuating conflict. They don't want to figure anything out. They don't know how, because that's not their industry. Your industry is the court system.

Speaker 1: 6:13

I think it's so interesting that you bring that up because I think it's looking at if you go to a surgeon to solve the problem, the surgeon is going to look at it under the lens of how do we cut you open, like, how do we do surgery to fix this problem? If you go to a physical therapist to help you solve the problem, they're going to look at it from the perspective of okay, what kind of exercises can we do? What kind of therapy can we do? So same thing with when you're talking about getting divorced If you go to a litigator, their lens is litigation and all that that entails. If you go to a mediator, their lens is conflict resolution, problem solving, getting creative. I thought it was really interesting that you mentioned there. You had a list of questions you wanted her to ask her attorney. I think that's such a key point of mediation and the role of a mediator is to get curious, ask questions, try to get underneath these really entrenched positions that some people get in and find out well, why is it that you need that? And it's getting into the why, where you start to get creative and you can start to resolve problems.

Speaker 2: 7:29

Yeah, and that's why it's so important to start with mediation, because about a third of my cases come from litigation. So they're a year and a quarter and then nothing has really happened and they've spent money and they were those people that thought they could figure this out. But now they're stuck in the system of litigation and nothing moves fast in litigation and it's oftentimes not the attorney's fault. I was a litigating attorney. I know it takes the court, it takes the other side, it takes your client, it takes the other attorney. There's lots of responsible people that in any of those parties that wanna slow down this process or can't move faster than they can, they're just gonna move at their pace and that's the end of it. There's no pushing them faster. So like you're stuck in that system. Now those cases that exit litigation a year and a half in, they almost all resolve right In a month or so because they're really motivated to like figure this out, let's meet, let's explore options, let's identify the issues and let's create solutions and let's pick some from some of them.

Speaker 1: 8:40

Well, I think the other thing for people to understand two things. It's a tactic a lot of times to drag things out for one attorney or another, right? So there's that. I will often encourage people, okay, so let's say there is that tactic and things aren't moving. You know you can always hop out of litigation and try mediation, so that's always an option. You're not stuck in one process or another. The other thing that is important for people to understand is you will be forced into a type of mediation in the litigation process, right, and I always say you're gonna be forced there, and by then you will have spent a ton of money and a ton of emotional and mental resources, and now you're gonna be mediating in a boxing ring. Why not get there first and see whether or not you can get creative and resolve your issues before you get to that boxing ring? And you've done so much damage and everybody's beaten up and now nobody really wants to get creative. Everybody's either worn out or too angry to work together.

Speaker 2: 9:40

So it's, it's, it's, and you know, what I also say on the other side is that's, as mediation isn't always perfect, yeah, we share a mutual client that we have not spoken at all about. That I'm mediating for and that's exactly what I relate to them is that, yes, I, you know it's not perfect, but the alternative is so damaging that, like, if you can succeed in mediation, the benefits are incredibly powerful for families, especially those of my and their financial futures of the two parents. There's so many huge benefits, whether you, you realize that those overwhelm the desire to kind of fight and perpetuate the conflict. You know it's. My advice is like, I understand your perspective, I know that this is what your kind of society teaches us, like this is where we get after, but, but you know so, while it's not perfect because you're not get, you're not having that opportunity to lift up under the hood every little possible thing that you could ever find in the world In general, this is a more healthy approach and certainly more financially beneficial to families.

Speaker 1: 10:56

And I want to point out before we wrap up that that you mentioned minor children and we often forget about the adult children in this divorce process, whether or not you have minor children or not. If you have children, they're your children forever, and that you are going to be co-parenting forever, and so the more that you can create some sort of workable relationship and that's going to be one that's got some respect, hopefully but but some way that you can work together to continue to parent these adult children, grandchildren, you know on down the line is going to be better for your family. So, again, I encourage all of you out there to reach out to Scott to talk more about mediation, and certainly, as a coach, you can reach out to me and talk about the options for mediation, but we strongly encourage you to to look at that as as your first option.

Speaker 2: 11:58

And with all of our contact in the description and remind me Kelly, I have a case right now where one of the where they've been married about four decades and they have really adult children and one of the adult children attended a therapy session with one of the parents where a lot, I guess, was kind of said and that is what we spent a lot of mediation appointments discussing because the hurt that came from that the other parent thought the betrayal of the divorce process, but by that other parent taking their adult child into their therapy session, that really impacted our work in the mediation, really diverted our efforts for, you know, a number of hours before we could get past that. So because of adult children, minor children they're all children, right.

Speaker 1: 12:50

They absolutely are, and what I would say to whether you have adult children or minor children. Ask yourself what things would you, what personal things, would you, share to your children in your normal life? So why would you start to share personal information with them Now that you're going through a divorce? Is that because your need to tell or your children's need to hear? So that's the question you got to ask yourself.

Speaker 2: 13:16

I love that. Let's leave it there.

Speaker 1: 13:18

Okay, all right, thanks guys. See you guys.