A recent New York Times article on the financial costs of divorce painted divorce mediation as one of the best alternatives for affordability. (“Can Divorce Be Affordable? Yes, but Only if Spouses Want It to Be” by Caitlin Kelly, The New York Times, Nov. 25, 2023). At Westfield Mediation, LLC, we have long maintained that divorce mediation is the way to go for couples who want a less adversarial, less expensive divorce process.
Using divorce attorneys is way more costly than mediation. In litigation, each spouse is charged by their lawyer for each hour spent talking to the client, working on the agreement and communicating with either their own client or the other party’s lawyer. Divorce attorneys charge high hourly rates so expenses quickly snowball. In addition, family lawyers require a retainer, so clients must pay a large sum upfront, and their lawyers subtract their fees from this amount as they go. Clients often must keep adding to the retainer over the long divorce process.
Similarly, according to the article, the collaborative divorce approach which promises a less contentious, team-based approach to creating a divorce agreement also ends up being very expensive. In collaborative divorce, clients must foot the bill for their team of divorce lawyers, as well as for financial experts, therapists, and divorce coaches. And if the collaborative divorce team is unsuccessful in helping the divorcing couple reach a resolution, clients generally must begin the process anew with a new set of divorce attorneys.
In contrast, divorce mediation offers a streamlined process where both spouses meet together with one impartial mediator to hash out all of the relevant issues from parenting schedules and decision-making to the division of assets and debts to child support and spousal support (alimony). By working with one divorce mediator instead of two divorce lawyers (and possibly their team of professionals), couples move more quickly to resolution with less drama and fewer expenses.
In addition, divorce mediation is pay-as-you-go, so there are no upfront costs, and clients can schedule the appointments in a way that works with their personal budget. In divorce mediation, we take a potentially overwhelming and expensive process and make it both manageable and affordable.
