Fostering a Cooperative Divorce Experience Beyond the Courtroom

Dive headfirst into the world of divorce mediation with us, your hosts Kelly Myers and attorney-mediator Scott Levin, as we uncover the surprisingly harmonious alternative to courtroom battles. 

This episode is a must-hear for anyone standing at the crossroads of marital dissolution, offering a guiding light toward a path less fraught with conflict. We tackle the misconceptions about the necessity of legal warfare and lay out the compelling reasons why mediation not only saves time and money but also preserves relationships, especially when children are involved. 

Scott, drawing on his wealth of experience, brings to life the stark contrast between adversarial negotiations and the cooperative spirit of mediation through real-life case studies that resonate with anyone who's ever faced the daunting prospect of divorce.

Join us for an episode that transcends the typical divorce narrative and offers a beacon of hope for peaceful transitions.

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
[e-mail]
858-255-1321
San Diego Divorce Mediation & Family Law
www.SanDiegoFamilyLawyer.net

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi, I'm Kelly Myers with First Steps Divorce, and I
am so excited to be here withScott Levin, an attorney and
mediator, and what we want to dois talk about mediation today.
And so, scott, as a coach, whenI'm working with people who are
going through divorce, I alwayslove it when I can work with
them in the beginning and when Ican really kind of share

(00:26):
information with them aboutdifferent ways to get divorced,
and I always tell people thatI'm really biased around the
fact that I think people shouldstart with mediation, and the
reason why is because thereality of it is there are very
few legal issues that need to bedecided in divorce.

(00:47):
I mean, really you've got legalpaperwork that needs to be
filed, but that really therearen't a lot of legal decisions
there is.
What are you going to do withthe finances?
What are you going to do aboutsupport and what are you going
to do about the kids?
If you've got kids, well, youdon't really need a lawyer for
that.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
What you need is somebody who really understands
how to facilitate the process ofmaking these decisions, that
understands all the decisionsthat need to be made and that is
spent time educating themselveson how to be a conflict
resolution specialist and how tocome up with creative ideas to

(01:30):
solve problems, and that's whatit is you need to be, you need
to make, you need someone tohelp you understand, to identify
what the issues are, like yousaid, help educate you about
what, the ways that you couldhandle those issues and what
they all mean, and speak youknow English, as opposed to
legalese to you, and then helpcreate those solutions, those

(01:52):
paths forward.
That's them.
That's exactly what you need.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yeah, absolutely.
And the other thing that peopledon'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 aboutan 80, 85% success rate when it
comes to mediation.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Yeah, it depends on the practice, Like obviously
private mediation.
I think a little higher, butyeah.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah.
So you've got the chance for areal 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 bysitting in that mediation room,
right.
You're kind of understandingwhat your spouse may be wanting.

(02:38):
You may get an idea of whattheir positions are right, but
you might even get an underlyingand understanding of what their
real needs are and that's gonnahelp inform you if you
ultimately had to go tolitigation.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah.
So there's a ton of advantagesof mediation.
Everything that you just namedis obviously one of them.
The other thing is that whenyou, a lot of people will say,
hey, I wanna go through thisquickly, I wanna figure this out
, like we don't have a lot ofdisagreements, but I'm gonna
hire a lawyer, he or she's gonnahire a lawyer, and then we're
gonna let the lawyers kind offigure it out and we're not

(03:13):
fighting, so it'll be fine.
And then the first thing yourealize that happens from there
is that now you're on twolawyers timelines and you're on
the court timeline, and becauseyou're essentially litigating,
but you're saying that we don'twanna go full blown, but now
there's certain formalities thathave to be followed, and now
you hire two people to help youfollow those formalities that

(03:36):
are not used to like a shortenedsettlement discussion.
They wanna build up to thecrescendo, which is the
negotiation, and in mediation wewanna get to the negotiation
Like let's figure this out andthen handle the legal paperwork
around it, as opposed tobuilding up for a year and a

(03:56):
half to the getting all thestuff done first, and so you
don't wanna get on a lawyer'stimeline.
If you guys have that situationlike, yeah, we're gonna be able
to figure out we don't have acomplicated situation or we do,
it doesn't really matter.
But hiring the two attorneysnow you're locked into that
timeline and there ain't nogetting around that timeline.
These people are beyond busy.

(04:18):
Every minute of their day iscalendar.
They're not gonna be responsiveto communication, they're not
gonna be available for yourphone calls and you're not gonna
be able to set meetings in thenext couple of weeks.
You're now hunkered down.
So hiring going for mediationis a different experience.
You're gonna have someonethat's, if you hire the right
person, it's gonna be available,that's gonna be able to get
those meetings scheduled.

(04:39):
Then that's gonna be able towork for both of you relatively
quickly.
I have a case right now where awoman a vast majority of my work
is a mediator, but sometimes Itake on a consulting attorney
one and she called me and shewas really, really sad and I
felt really bad for her and Iwanted to help her.
And she said we've been married10 years but we got married

(05:00):
later in life and it's not gonnabe that complicated.
But my husband hired a lawyerand they were gonna send me a
settlement proposal but like,maybe I could just have you,
hire you for a couple of hoursand you could help me.
And so she asked them for thesettlement proposal.
The settlement proposal said Itake everything, you take
nothing deal.
That's what the settlementproposal was.

(05:24):
So then she sorted it to me andI responded and I asked some
questions because they weresaying this is all separate
properties.
I said, hey, can you show us howthat's separate?
Just the basics, not trying tofight right, just like I am
coming at this from a problemsolving town.
You couldn't believe theresponse I got back.
The response I got back fromthe other attorney was go f

(05:47):
yourself and go f yourself andgo f yourself.
Now this attorney hired to help.
This is the agreement they had.
Let's figure this out.
This is the figure out attorneyon the other side.
They're not figuring it out,they're perpetuating conflict.
They don't want to figureanything out.

(06:07):
They don't know how, becausethat's not their industry.
Your industry is the courtsystem.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
I think it's so interesting that you bring that
up because I think it's lookingat if you go to a surgeon to
solve the problem, the surgeonis 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 physicaltherapist to help you solve the
problem, they're going to lookat it from the perspective of

(06:33):
okay, what kind of exercises canwe do?
What kind of therapy can we do?
So same thing with when you'retalking about getting divorced
If you go to a litigator, theirlens is litigation and all that
that entails.
If you go to a mediator, theirlens is conflict resolution,

(06:55):
problem solving, gettingcreative.
I thought it was reallyinteresting that you mentioned
there.
You had a list of questions youwanted her to ask her attorney.
I think that's such a key pointof mediation and the role of a
mediator is to get curious, askquestions, try to get underneath
these really entrenchedpositions that some people get

(07:18):
in and find out well, why is itthat you need that?
And it's getting into the why,where you start to get creative
and you can start to resolveproblems.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, and that's why it's so important to start with
mediation, because about a thirdof my cases come from
litigation.
So they're a year and a quarterand then nothing has really
happened and they've spent moneyand they were those people that
thought they could figure thisout.
But now they're stuck in thesystem of litigation and nothing

(07:51):
moves fast in litigation andit's oftentimes not the
attorney's fault.
I was a litigating attorney.
I know it takes the court, ittakes the other side, it takes
your client, it takes the otherattorney.
There's lots of responsiblepeople that in any of those
parties that wanna slow downthis process or can't move
faster than they can, they'rejust gonna move at their pace

(08:13):
and that's the end of it.
There's no pushing them faster.
So like you're stuck in thatsystem.
Now those cases that exitlitigation a year and a half in,
they almost all resolve rightIn a month or so because they're
really motivated to like figurethis out, let's meet, let's

(08:34):
explore options, let's identifythe issues and let's create
solutions and let's pick somefrom some of them.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
Well, I think the other thing for people to
understand two things.
It's a tactic a lot of times todrag 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 outof litigation and try mediation
, so that's always an option.
You're not stuck in one processor another.

(09:02):
The other thing that isimportant for people to
understand is you will be forcedinto a type of mediation in the
litigation process, right, andI always say you're gonna be
forced there, and by then youwill have spent a ton of money
and a ton of emotional andmental resources, and now you're
gonna be mediating in a boxingring.
Why not get there first and seewhether or not you can get

(09:27):
creative and resolve your issuesbefore you get to that boxing
ring?
And you've done so much damageand everybody's beaten up and
now nobody really wants to getcreative.
Everybody's either worn out ortoo angry to work together.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
So it's, it's, it's, and you know, what I also say on
the other side is that's, asmediation isn't always perfect,
yeah, we share a mutual clientthat we have not spoken at all
about.
That I'm mediating for andthat's exactly what I relate to
them is that, yes, I, you knowit's not perfect, but the

(10:06):
alternative is so damaging that,like, if you can succeed in
mediation, the benefits areincredibly powerful for families
, especially those of my andtheir financial futures of the
two parents.
There's so many huge benefits,whether you, you realize that
those overwhelm the desire tokind of fight and perpetuate the

(10:26):
conflict.
You know it's.
My advice is like, I understandyour perspective, I know that
this is what your kind ofsociety teaches us, like this is
where we get after, but, butyou know so, while it's not
perfect because you're not get,you're not having that
opportunity to lift up under thehood every little possible

(10:47):
thing that you could ever findin the world In general, this is
a more healthy approach andcertainly 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 andwe often forget about the adult
children in this divorceprocess, whether or not you have
minor children or not.
If you have children, they'reyour children forever, and that
you are going to be co-parentingforever, and so the more that
you can create some sort ofworkable relationship and that's

(11:22):
going to be one that's got somerespect, hopefully but but some
way that you can work togetherto continue to parent these
adult children, grandchildren,you know on down the line is
going to be better for yourfamily.
So, again, I encourage all ofyou out there to reach out to

(11:43):
Scott to talk more aboutmediation, and certainly, as a
coach, you can reach out to meand talk about the options for
mediation, but we stronglyencourage 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 caseright now where one of the where
they've been married about fourdecades and they have really
adult children and one of theadult children attended a
therapy session with one of theparents where a lot, I guess,
was kind of said and that iswhat we spent a lot of mediation

(12:20):
appointments discussing becausethe hurt that came from that
the other parent thought thebetrayal of the divorce process,
but by that other parent takingtheir adult child into their
therapy session, that reallyimpacted our work in the
mediation, really diverted ourefforts for, you know, a number

(12:42):
of hours before we could getpast 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 minorchildren.
Ask yourself what things wouldyou, what personal things, would
you, share to your children inyour normal life?
So why would you start to sharepersonal information with them
Now that you're going through adivorce?
Is that because your need totell or your children's need to

(13:12):
hear?
So that's the question you gotto 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.