Divorce mediation is a voluntary process where divorcing couples work together with a trained mediator to negotiate and resolve their differences in a non-adversarial forum.
For many divorcing couples, mediation has become a viable alternative to the financial and emotional costs of traditional adversarial legal representation. Sensibly used, mediation provides the opportunity to find fair and realistic solutions to the economic and practical issues facing the family and also helps to heal the psychological rift.
Mediation is based on the premise that the people getting divorced are in the best position to make decisions that will have long-term personal and financial consequences on their lives.
"The central quality of mediation...[is] its capacity to reorient the parties toward each other, not by imposing rules on them, but by helping them to achieve a new and shared perception of their relationship."