How to Effectively Use Mediation to Settle with Your Atlanta Divorce – Part III
In part three of our ten part series on how to effectively use mediation in your contested divorce case, we will continue to examine steps to take to make sure you and your Atlanta divorce lawyer are ready for mediation. This blog will also work if you and your spouse plan on using mediation to settle your case without an Atlanta Divorce lawyer. In this blog, we go into a little more detail on the preparation necessary for an effective mediation in a contested divorce case.
Budget Accuracy. As Atlanta divorce lawyers, we find that one of the greatest problems in mediation is "inflated" or "deflated" budgets, which have absolutely no relation to reality or historical spending levels. If budgets represent actual numbers and historical levels of expenditures, mediation has a much greater chance of success. You want to avoid paying your Atlanta divorce lawyer an hourly rate to "haggle" over the accuracy of budget numbers. If you have not been the one who has taken care of the finances during the divorce, make sure that you have requested the information from your spouse to obtain the documents necessary to prepare an accurate budget. If he won’t turn them over, your Atlanta divorce lawyer can seek this information through formal discovery.
Have extra copies of all documents. Do not go to mediation with only one copy of a document that you intend to rely upon. Have multiple copies so that everyone can look at the same documents, can make notes on them, and go over those documents in the initial caucus. If you plan on making the extra copies yourself, make sure you tell your Atlanta divorce lawyer ahead of time.
Highlight the Document. If there are specific portions of a document you want to emphasize for the mediation or your Atlanta divorce lawyer, highlight it ahead of time. This draws attention to exactly what you want to emphasize; and makes it clear and concise. It also facilitates future reference to these important portions of the documents.
IF POSSIBLE, "BLOW-UP" DOCUMENTS THAT ARE CRITICAL TO YOUR CASE. This forces the mediator to look at your document, and it also emphasizes its importance of that document to your position. If you have two (2) or three (3) enlargements, then those documents tend to take on a "larger than life" role. They may well become more and more important as the mediation goes on. People tend to pay more attention to the larger documents than they do the smaller ones. Discuss this with your Atlanta divorce lawyer ahead of time. Some mediators are better than others and do not require documents to be blown up.
