Whats the difference between mediation, arbitration and collaborative law?
Mediation is a highly focused negotiation session on one or more issues that is led and facilitated by a neutral mediator, who is appointed by the disputing parties to help guide their discussions. Although the mediator cannot force a settlement, he or she can comment on the strength of each party’s position, suggest promising avenues of negotiation, and keep the focus on the problem at hand rather than the parties’ dislike for one another. Mediation can be highly effective even when the parties would never imagine that they could agree about anything. Arbitration is an alternative to litigation that resembles a trial, but the procedures are streamlined to simplify the presentation of evidence, and the matter is decided by a private arbitrator rather than a judge. Collaborative law is a way of resolving all of the issues that a divorce case might present by committing the divorcing spouses to resolve them by agreement to the greatest extent possible.
