Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Family Mediation-How Mediation Can Help After Divorce

Mediation is effective for resolving issues that come up after your divorce is final. Issues that come up after the divorce decree is final are called "post-judgment" issues or matters.

The most common issues after a divorce are modification of child support, custody, visitation, and alimony. But remember, you and your former spouse can agree to mediate any problems arising from a divorce settlement agreement or divorce decree.

Since division of property was dealt with during the divorce, many post-judgment disputes revolve around issues related to children if you and your former spouse have them in common. The most common of these issues are child support modification, visitation, and custody changes. Regardless of the exact issue concerning children, mediation is usually a very good vehicle to resolve them.

What are the benefits to you of mediation for post-judgment disputes? The same as for using divorce mediation, including more control of the outcome, flexibility in choosing a solution, lower or no legal costs, confidentiality, and certainty of outcome.

If you and your former spouse decide to fight it out in court, then you're back in the same emotional and financial roller coaster that is usually associated with a litigated divorce.

Just like in divorce mediation, you can go to post-judgment mediation without using an attorney. You simply choose a mediator, and make arrangements to schedule mediation.

If you and your former spouse had a litigated divorce, and are still sore at the process and the expense of litigating the first time around, consider using mediation first for post-judgment disputes. You can still use the services of a lawyer to review any mediated settlement agreement before you sign it. But it will be cheaper for the lawyer to review the agreement than to represent you in a post-judgment legal action.

Even paying for the mediation is the same. Each of you can pay one-half or you both can agree that one of you will pay for the entire mediation.
In summary, post-judgment mediation can help you in the same way as mediation for divorces. Request more information on divorce mediation.

Vivian Rodriguez helps parties in family disputes workout creative solutions to lessen the emotional and financial impact of expensive and long litigation. She is a Florida Supreme Court-certified family mediator offering dispute resolution services in Broward, Collier, Lee and Miami-Dade Counties, FL. Se Habla Espanol. For more information on mediation and its benefits to you and your family in your divorce or other family dispute, even before you start the legal process, visit http://fldivorcemediation.com/.


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