Yes, there’s a divorce option to that austere, forbidding courtroom

Are you a Southern California resident all tied up in knots and dealing with major angst after having decided with your partner that a divorce makes optimal sense for both of you going forward?

Is it perhaps the prospect of having to go through the divorce process in the sterile and formal atmosphere of a courtroom that has you frustrated and worried? Does the idea of vetting everything through a judge — who is, after all, a stranger who knows nothing about you and your soon-to-be ex personally — strike you as being exceedingly impersonal and having the propensity to induce miscalculations and error in judicial rulings directed at important matters?

If you wish there was some other way, you should take heart from knowing that there is. Moreover, high numbers of couples in California and nationally have availed themselves of it to better ensure a divorce process that is marked by civility and rationality rather than by what is sometimes acrimony and lasting bitterness.

Not every divorcing couple is best served by an alternative dispute resolution process such as mediation, which contrasts in myriad and fundamental ways to a process that is dictated by a court’s calendar and a judge’s assessment of your situation.

Many couples are, though, being attracted to the possibility that they can set the agenda and pursue it in a manner and at a pace that best suits them. Further, many divorcing spouses relish the opportunity, as we note on our divorce website at the Orange County Law Offices of Ronda A. Middleton, to adopt “out of the box” family law solutions that a family law judge might never consider or order.

In many instances, mediation can be a healthy, time-efficient and comparatively cheap divorce option when compared with the traditional adversarialism that features in court and under the eye of a judge.

Ronda A. Middleton is both a California attorney and mediator who can candidly discuss divorce options with a client and help that individual determine whether mediation or another alternative to a court-supervised divorce might be something he or she reasonably wants to pursue.