Why You Should Consult A Lawyer For Your Mediated Divorce

Mediation divorce, which is popular with many people, still requires the input of a divorce attorney. This may come as a surprise to you if you believe that mediation involves you, your spouse, and a mediator only. That is the basic setup of the process, but a lawyer still has some useful contributions to make. For example, the attorney can offer the following benefits:

Explain Your Options

Many people choose mediated divorce because they have heard that it is less contentious, cheaper, and generally a good way of divorcing. However, there are high chances that you don't know much more about the process or about other divorce avenues open to you.

Therefore, it's wise to consult an attorney even before commencing the mediation. He or she will explain to you what the process involves and explain your other options such as collaborative divorce and arbitration.

Estimate Costs and Outcomes

An experienced divorce attorney, who is the go-to person for these issues, may also help you with projections of costs and possible incomes. He or she has handled similar cases before and may issue these estimates after analyzing your situation.

Coach You on Legal Issues

Mediating your divorce involves sitting down together and agreeing on your divorce issues. However, the agreements still have to be made with the confines of the law. This is where you need the attorney – so that he or she can guide you and coach you on issues on the legal requirements. Otherwise, you are just wasting time, and may have to go back to the drawing board when you submit your divorce agreement to court. For example, agreeing to set aside 13% of your income as child support payments may be useless if your state demands a minimum of 17%.

Review Your Agreement

At the end of the discussions, it's useful to have an attorney to review the agreement. This is particularly necessary if the mediation has been lengthy, difficult or extremely contentious. It's possible for the agreement draft to contain a few errors. Your lawyer will read it and go through it with you to confirm that it contains exactly what you agreed to during the negotiations.  

Therefore, you can see that mediated divorce is much easier if a lawyer is involved. You don't have to retain the lawyer full time, but you can consult him or her on an as-needed basis. He or she may even coach you on negotiation strategies and reduce the risk of mediation collapse.