Mediation is a structured settlement meeting: you, your attorney (if you have one), the other party, their attorney, and a neutral mediator — no one else. Courts order it often because it works: reported settlement rates run well above what you’d expect from litigation, and it’s faster and cheaper than waiting for trial.
A typical mediation starts with everyone in one room, where each side briefly states their position. Then the mediator shuttles between separate rooms, relaying offers and counter-offers. Everything you tell the mediator is confidential unless you agree to share it — the one exception is a mediator’s legal duty to report anything involving a crime against a child.
Getting the most out of it
- Use a mediator who’s a family-law attorney — they can accurately tell you what a judge is likely to do, which a generalist can’t.
- Decide your bottom line the night before, and don’t make your opening offer your only offer — leave room to negotiate.
- Come rested; mediations can run long and are genuinely exhausting.
- If a court has ordered mediation, the resulting agreement is binding once both sides sign; if it’s voluntary, either side can back out before finalizing it.
One advantage of mediation over a trial: you can agree to terms a judge legally couldn’t order on their own (like who claims the federal dependency tax exemption in which years), since some remedies are outside a family court’s authority to impose unilaterally.