Mediation offers lower stress, lower cost option

Divorce is a word that conjures up images of conflict and pain. Billy Wear Jr. compares the traditional divorce process to the Grim Reaper, who "leaves emotionally and financially broken and devastated people in its path." He added, "Nobody comes out a winner in a contested case."

Wear, a lawyer, counselor, author, minister and mediator with the Angel Gardens Resolution Center, said he believes mediation helps ease the parting process. He estimates 94 percent to 96 percent of divorces can be resolved through mediation.

Litigation is a legal battle and people get hurt, especially children when custody suits are involved, he said.

"The natural outcome of the adversarial system is adversarialness. Expecting a divorce case not to be (conflictive) is like going to a boxing match and being surprised people in the ring are hitting each other. When you hire a lawyer, you are hiring someone to go out and beat up the other side," Wear said.

When people hire a mediator, he said, they are hiring a neutral party who serves as a peacemaker, creating options for both sides.

"Most people turn their divorce cases over to three strangers two attorneys and a judge. Then these three strangers end up making critical decisions about their lives, their children and their property. The decisions made by these three people will affect everyone in the family for the rest of their lives. Mediation allows and encourages spouses to take responsibility for their own divorce agreement," Wear wrote in his book "Recovering from Divorce ... And the Horse You Rode in On!"

According to Wear, there are other advantages of going through mediation: costs are usually lower with it than without it; working out details is done in privacy rather than in open court battles; the time involved can be considerably less than in the traditional divorce process; and emotional costs are lower because there is less conflict spouses get to reconcile differences instead of creating more, and children suffer less turmoil since their parents aren't doing battle.

The mediation process doesn't eliminate the need for a lawyer, but it takes less of the lawyer's time, Wear said. Once spouses have reached an agreement on issues, the mediator writes a memorandum containing the terms.

The memorandum is looked over by both parties. The attorneys, not the mediator, prepare the formal agreement and present it to the court at an uncontested hearing.

Wear, who also trains future mediators, said that in Missouri, there are no special qualifications to be a mediator.

However, to handle a court-referred case mediators need to have at least 20 accredited hours of mediation training and be a master's level counselor or an attorney.

"In our community there are still lawyers who don't understand mediation. Lawyers who understand it are very pro-mediation. Those who don't are anti-mediation. There are several authorities, including myself, who believe if an attorney doesn't discuss mediation with a client, they aren't representing their client very well," Wear said.