Key Area

Divorce Mediation

Divorce Litigation

What your mediator/attorney does

Consultants with you

Acts for you

Financial cost of divorce

Minimized

Significantly greater

Based on

Collaboration

Compromise and/or competition

Objective

Maximize what each part gets

Minimize what the other party gets

Focus

What works best for each party

Who is "right"

Emphasis

Mutual understanding and respect

Making the other party wrong

Communications

Find ways to hear and be heard

Continue what does not work

Relationship

Build a new one

Perpetuate the old one

What children see

Mom and Dad working together

Mom and Dad can't get along

Decision makers

Husband and Wife

Judge/Attorney/Husband & Wife

Emotional cost or benefit

Work through some of the pain

Reinforce the pain

What gets reinforced

Creating solutions that work

Inability to solve problems