Mediation in Custody Cases
Custody cases are often the most difficult of family law matters. Deciding who will provide parenting and how is often incredibly contentious, and it’s often said among family law attorneys that custody cases only end when the children in question are 18. Courts are increasingly ordering such cases to mediation, and the benefits for custody can be huge.
First, remember that the official court process is fairly inflexible. Experienced family law judges will always tell the parties that the court’s decision will be, necessarily, fairly limited. Asking a judge to decide means that someone who doesn’t know all the details will make the decision, and most likely they won’t have time to go over likely permutations or problems in the plan they come up with. In mediation, the agreement will be crafted by the two parties that know the most about the situation, and a good mediator will discuss likely problems so that the parties can have a plan to deal with issues that might crop up.
Also, frankly, the other huge advantage of mediation is that you’ll have more than an hour to work on a plan. Very often, parents may not know or may be too angry to consider that one parent has a huge attachment to Easter, so much so that it’s much more important to that parent than Thanksgiving and Christmas. A mediator can discover and take the time to find that actually, this arrangement is better for everyone if Easter is always the holiday for Parent 1, and Parent 2 can have Thanksgiving and Christmas together. Imagine you were setting up a custody arrangement for two people on the bus, and had to have it finished during the bus ride. You’d give one party Thanksgiving and one Christmas and start looking for your stop; the judge will, 99 times out of a hundred, do the same.
Further, it’s a lot easier in mediation to include issues with third parties, like other family members. For example, when can grandparents provide parenting? A useful answer to the question needs to investigate how everyone’s relationship with Grandma is, and whether this is going to cause more problems than it solves. Mediation also makes it a lot easier to consult the third parties that might be involved; I’ve often had custody cases in which we got an agreement in court and no one was able to check whether or not Grandma could actually provide childcare as the parties had agreed. She couldn’t, and so the case went right back to court. Mediation avoids this.
The trick, of course, is that custody can be hard. Very strong feelings are involved, big decisions are involved, and it can be difficult or even impossible to address these issues calmly and politely. What you need to mediate a custody dispute is someone who’s comfortable with big emotions and experienced with family law disputes. At Far River, we have extensive experience in family law, both in family law court, criminal court, and the multiple varieties of restraining orders. We can handle bitter disputes, and we aim to get both parties to a realistic and thorough agreement that will let them stop fighting in court, and stop spending money and time that could better go to the kids involved. If you’re having a difficult time figuring out custody, particularly if mediation hasn’t worked before, consider giving us a try.
