The Importance of Mediation in Custody Cases

 

So what is the actual most important part about mediation in a custody process? Hi, I’m attorney Clint Hastings. I practice in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I focus on fathers’ rights. So in every case, before you get a trial, the judge will request or order that the parties do mediation to see if they can meet with the third party, the mediator, and come to some sort of agreement without having to have a trial. Often this works.

 

Mediators, good mediators, can come to the table with both parties and their attorneys and give suggestions or, you know, give their opinions on, hey, I had a similar case, this is what the judge did there, I think your judge is similar, and this is kind of how I see this panning out. Now a mediator may not know your whole case, probably will not know your whole case, nor is there time to involve them in all the details of the case, but they’re kind of really just nudging. It’s not so much that they’re forcing their opinion or accepting their opinion as gold, but it helps decide, you know, maybe we should take a look at this, maybe there’s trade-offs to make, and maybe we can get to an agreement.

 

The Power of Face-to-Face Negotiation

 

However, the most important part of mediation is the physical act of going to a neutral location, sitting down, and going back and forth between the parties with offers, denials, compromises, questions, because what happens in a normal case up to that point, your attorney will send over a written offer, sometimes it takes days to a week or longer before you hear back, they’ve counter-offered with something, then you have to, the attorney has to contact their client, discuss it with them, counter-offer back, and weeks can go by, and often you forget where you even started.

 

At a mediation, over a couple of hour period, you can bat back and forth some of these issues and learn in real time, like, oh, their problem with this offer that I’ve made is only this part, it’s not the whole thing, it’s just if we adjusted this part, maybe she’ll adjust that part, and it gets it done, it forces you into that process, and you have to pay for it, you pay a mediator, it’s not that expensive, you are paying an attorney to be there, but really, when the parties come together like that and are invested in paying for it, and they’re participating in good faith, you often do at least reach concessions on some issues.

 

Take the Next Step Towards Resolution

 

Or narrow the issues that will save you time, effort, and money by not having to do a trial over those issues. I hope this helps, let us know if you have other questions, I’ll try to do a video about your question. Thanks. To learn more about how mediation can benefit your custody case, contact Tulsa Dads.Law attorney Clint Hastings for a low-cost consultation at 918-962-0900.