I began to think about becoming a mediator when 2 family members were going through divorces in 1992. One couple relatively quickly reached a settlement, although it involved my relative foregoing certain items that his lawyer thought he was entitled to (but that he hadn’t thought very important). He and his ex-wife both remarried within a couple of years and both went on to have families with their new spouses. They are sadly still not on good terms with each other, but they have both moved along in their lives.
The other couple fought through judicial hearings over many short term issues such as who got to be with the 
children on the first or second days of Rosh Hashanah. This couple took about 6 years to get their papers done. They left unpaid lawyer’s invoices on the table and the father rarely speaks to his now grown children.
I was thinking about leaving my corporate law practice and was very disturbed at what my relatives were going through. I thought that there must be a less brutal way to end a marriage. I found that, in fact, people undergoing divorce do have OPTIONS, at least as to which process they use in order to get divorced.
Elaine Kirsch, Esq. 