In Mediation, parties attempt to settle disputes, divide property, and determine visitation, child support and custody issues. The goal of the mediation is to curtail a long bitter and expensive court process in RI Family Court. A RI divorce mediator’s prime goal is to facilitate a RI divorce settlement rather than make determinations. Judges decide cases. RI Family Court attorneys advocate for their clients. Mediators are neutral and help the parties resolve their disputes.
Alternative dispute resolution
A Rhode Island Mediator is a referee. A good RI mediator will attempt to facilitate solutions to disputes. Mediations are in an attorney’s office and not a Family Court Courtroom. As a result, Mediation should be less stressful than a contested divorce or RI or child custody feud.
Mediation is usually a lot less expensive than a contested divorce or custody fight.
In Mediation, the parties attempt to resolve their Family Law Case on their own schedule. Mediation is usually a lot less time consuming then a contested divorce. Mediation may also occur in the middle of a Rhode Island contested divorce in which both parties have RI divorce lawyers. In some Rhode Island divorce cases, it is the lawyers who are arguing more than the clients. Sometimes it is the lawyers who appear to need a “separation.”
A contested divorce may involve stress, endless posturing and endless waiting for a court hearing or trial that may never happen. Mediation allows the litigants to skip the expensive and often stressful process of divorce lawyers posturing to get leverage. Often the parties could have reached the same resolution of their disputes at the beginning of the case through the mediation process without the legal fees, without the missed days of work and without the stress.
What is divorce mediation?
“Mediation is a process in which a third party (usually neutral and unbiased) facilitates a negotiated consensual agreement among parties, without rendering a formal decision.” Mediation, Arbitration, and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) ( IN: International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Elsevier Ltd. , 2015 )
Divorce mediation RI- confidentiality
Rhode Island general law 9-19-44 protects the confidentiality of the mediation process. § 9-19-44. Mediator confidentiality in mediation proceedings:
(a) All memoranda and other work product, including files, reports, interviews, case summaries, and notes, prepared by a mediator shall be confidential and not subject to disclosure in any subsequent judicial or administrative proceeding involving any of the parties to any mediation in which the materials are generated; nor shall a mediator be compelled to disclose in any subsequent judicial or administrative proceeding any communication made to him or her in the course of, or relating to the subject matter of, any mediation by a participant in the mediation process. For the purposes of this section, “mediation” shall mean a process in which an impartial third party who is a qualified mediator, who lacks authority to impose a solution, helps participants reach their own agreement for resolving a dispute, whether or not a judicial action has been filed; and a “mediator” shall mean an impartial person who enters into a written agreement with the parties to assist them in resolving their dispute and who has completed at least thirty (30) hours of training in mediation, or has two (2) years of professional experience as a mediator, or has been appointed to mediate by a judicial or governmental body.
- Divorce mediation RI
- RI mediation notice
- RI mediation statute
- Rhode Island mediation requirements
The Mediation Process can help parents learn how to co-parent and come up with a visitation schedule or custody plan on their own terms.
Rhode Island Divorce is usually not a “win- loss” situation. In Rhode Island there is equitable division of assets. No one usually “wins” in a divorce. A mediator can help the parties come to an equitable division of the, Pensions, 401k, boats, Real Estate, cars, property, cd’s, businesses marital debts.
- Stop the Madness,
- End the “divorce war”,
- Curtail out of control legal fees,
- Divorce with dignity,
- Protect your Children from the adverse consequences of a contested divorce,
- Become invested in the process,
- At least attempt an amicable settlement before the Divorce battle begins.