Divorce is difficult. You can choose to make it more painful or less painful.

If you hire attorneys to bicker with each other, rack-up the bill, and then finally get a divorce in 12+ months, it’s much more painful. If you choose to mediate your divorce, it will be less painful. Choose wisely.

Mediation puts your kids first, cuts through the drama, reduces the cost, and saves you from divorce litigation hell. Mediation will not save you from all the pain of your divorce, but it will spare you the pain of litigation hell and it will help you create a new relationship with your former spouse.

Divorce mediation requires a skilled-hand to navigate through your conflict, point-out the dangers, and guide you to a resolution.

Julie Gentili Armbrust is a highly-effective mediator who facilitates a mediation process designed to reach a fair result for both parties. She keeps you focused on the issue, navigates through the emotions, keeps the conversation on-track, and guides you to a solution. Once you reach a solution, Mediation Northwest then creates the necessary documents for your divorce.  We will handle everything from beginning to end. We even go to court for you.

Court divorces usually take between 9-18 months. Mediation usually takes between 1-3 months.

Court proceedings are 3-5 times higher in cost than mediation. Although most attorneys and mediators charge by the hour, parties who use mediation only pay for one professional (the mediator) and not two dueling attorneys who duplicate work and prepare for every possibility that the other side may put forth.

Mediation cuts through the nonsense. In mediation, the parties talk about the problem and the solutions to the problem. No posturing for the other side (which attorneys love to do… and get paid for it). If a party gets off-track, the mediator guides them back to the agenda. If a party has an unrealistic solution that doesn’t take into account both parties, the mediator will reality-check them.

When parties submit their divorce to the court to decide, the parties lose control over their future. Mediation requires that both parties agree on the solutions, which means you control your custody arrangements and your support obligations.

Although you are getting a divorce, you still need a functional relationship with the other party. Because mediation requires you to work together to determine the terms of your divorce, you learn different ways to interact and communicate. You also create future expectations for how the party will interact with you.