PRIVATE COURTS™

Private Courts is the answer to keeping all your options open. The Mediator will inform you if you are a good candidate for mediation.  Once you move forward, your Mediator is committed to providing tools to help minimize the negative impact of divorce on everyone involved.  We adopt a strong child advocacy approach to our mediations. We help you to find the balance between your self interest and needs and that of the family as a whole.

1. Choice of method for your California Divorce
2. Cost of Divorce
3. Divorce Mediation Myths
4. Choosing a Mediator
5. The Divorce Process
6. Divorce Philosophy
7. Ten Good Reasons to use Divorce Mediation

         CALIFORNIA DIVORCE OPTIONS:

Doing your own divorce:  Do it yourself or use divorce document assistance services.  This is not recommended if you have any of the following: children, tax concerns, pension plans, long term marriages and/or high asset or high debt. Some courts have family law facilitators or self help centers but usually are unable to give advice. They can help with procedural questions.  Nolo press has self help books which can assist, but one should always be aware that boiler plate paragraphs can be dangerous when one does not fully understand the legal implications of the wording.  Document assistance services are not mediators and nor attorneys, and unless the case is extremely simple and clear cut one should tread cautiously.  Divorce mills are not entirely conclusive as they too are unable to legally provide advice.  Supposedly they will help do the form work for you, however the forms require an understanding of your rights and obligations.

Collaborative Divorce: Parties each hire a collaborative attorney to assist in the process of divorce and settlement,  requiring you to sign a collaborative law agreement, where you waive your right to have this particular attorney represent you if you decide to litigate in Court. If you are unable to reach a settlement, you will need to find another attorney to litigate your case.  Collaborative law can be a good choice, depending on the circumstances and personalities involved.  Parity and co-operation are essential to its success.  It may be a better choice than immediate litigation. However if you do need to litigate it will be an extra expense as it could cost thousands of dollars for a new attorneys to review the files.   This process can sometimes be very drawn out, depending on the Parties.  The attornys may include financial advisor/ analyst, coaches and therapists for each party. 

Ask your collaborative attorney to keep assessing whether the process is serving your needs and make sure you are making headway with agreement before allowing it to go too far.  Make sure you have the financial backing you need in place at the outset.  If this is difficult to accomplish, it may be a sign to try something else.   It will be a lot more expensive than mediation with using consulting attorneys.  We consider collaborative law a luxurious way to divorce as you have so many professionals involved.   If you have money to spend it may a good choice of method, as long as you both are co-operating and in absolute good faith to want to settle your matter.

Hiring and retaining a divorce attorney:  Hiring an attorney to represent you and go to court, if necessary. These cases can also be settled. Usually the attorney will file for divorce immediately on your behalf, which can often exacerbate anger as the divorce process, by its very nature, is adversarial and aggressive.  This is recommended if one party is unreasonable, violent, threatening about custody or property, does not want to work co-operatively or does not want to comply with the divorce the law.  The pitfalls of hiring a separate attorney right away, to file, as opposed to a mere consultation is the fact that often this serves to alienate the other party and set the case uo for attorney posturing right at the outset.   The costs can get out of hand before you get to mediation.  SOme cases require quick and decisive action, however in other cases this could serve to hamper what may otherwise have been a friendly and cost effective process.

Private confidential Mediation, using a neutral mediator chosen by both parties.  Some mediators assist with divorce documents for Court.  This is done on a session by session basis.  This method can be used with the assistance of a consulting and reviewing attorney.  The mediator usually expects you to have a good idea as to your rights and obligations.  A good mediator will work to ensure both parties are equally empowered.

Mediation using “The Private Court Full Management System:”  This is a unique method that incorporates all of the above divorce modalities and more: The mediator is also a full service case manager who helps both parties with every aspect of the divorce to include: referrals to and management of consultations with separate attorneys; facilitation of direct, party to party, negotiations for settling all divorce issues; full disclosure between the parties; and if necessary referrals to financial analysts, CPA’s , therapists, support groups.  As a case manager, the mediator will also provide recommended  appropriate bibliographies for parents and children. The mediator may draft or provide memorandum of understanding for  marital settlement agreements, parenting plans.   In order to keep the entire process "under one roof", divorce document assistance, divorce court filing will be offered as an option for the parties. The mediator will work to assist parties to minimizing the potential for excessive conflict. This is a resolution environment where you can customize and control your divorce and the outcome, at the same time as maintaining your dignity and minimizing the trauma for the children. This all inclusive approach is highly recommended. 

The mediator should assess if this divorce approach will work for you. 

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Divorce statistics:

43% of first marriages end within 15 years. Red states have a divorce rate 27% higher than blue states.
75% of all divorced people re-marry, half of them within three years. "For Richer or Poorer", Illustration By Sarah Wilkins, in January/February 2005 issue of Mother Jones.  Quoted in a posting from Smart Marriages Listserv on Jan. 4, 2005.

65% of new marriages fail. [This must be a misprint or out of context. It may mean 2nd or 3rd marriages]
Teresa Castro Martin and Larry L. Bumpass, "Recent Trends in Marital Disruption", Demography 26 (1989): 37-51. Cited on page 5 ofThe Abolition of Marriage, by Maggie Gallagher 

Length of marriage before divorce

Census Bureau: Number, Timing, and Duration of Marriages and Divorces: 2001 (Issued February 2005) reports that: Roughly 1 in 5 adults has ever divorced; First marriages that end in divorce last about 8 years, on
average. http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p70-97.pdf

"Marriages are most susceptible to divorce in the early years of marriage. After 5 years, approximately10 % of marriages are expected to end in divorce - another 10 % (or 20 % cumulatively) are divorced by about the tenth year after marriage. However, the 30% level is not reached until about the 18th year after marriage while the 40% level is only approached by the 50th year after marriage." Rose M. Kreider and Jason M. Fields, "Number, Timing, and Duration of Marriages and Divorces: 1996", U.S. Census Bureau Current Population Reports, February 2002, p. 18.

Cohabitation, Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the United States. Series Report 23, Number 22. 103pp. (PHS) 98-1998.
Download report at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_23/sr23_022.pdf mong the findings in this report: unmarried cohabitations overall are less stable than marriages.  The probability of a first marriage ending in separation or divorce within 5 years is 20 percent, but the probability of a premarital cohabitation breaking up within 5 years is 49 percent.  After
10 years, the probability of a first marriage ending is 33 percent, compared with 62 percent for cohabitations.

TWO-YEAR ITCH INFECTS MARRIAGE COUPLES watching out for the seven-year itch should be on their guard a lot earlier these days. According to research, they are far more likely to separate after about two years of marriage. One in 12 couples is heading for the divorce courts after 24 months - more than double the figure for seven years. From "TWO-YEAR ITCH INFECTS MARRIAGE" News Australia, By James Mills, June 22, 2004 Cited in a posting in the Smart Marriages listserv June 22, 2004. News Australia, By James Mills, June 22, 2004.

Change Over Time in Divorce Rates

The number of divorced people in the population more than quadrupled from 4.3 million in 1970 to 18.3 million in 1996, according to a Census Bureau report on MARITAL STATUS AND LIVING ARRANGEMENTS  "14% of white women who married in the 1940s eventually divorced. A single generation later, almost 50 percent of those that married in the late sixties and early seventies have already divorced. ... Between 1970 and 1992, the proportion of babies born outside of marriage leaped from 11% to 30%." Amara Bachu, Fertility of American Women: June 1994 (Washington D.C.: Bureau of the Census, September 1995), xix, Table K. Cited on page5 ofThe Abolition of Marriage, by Maggie Gallagher

"According to the National Center for Health Statitics (1988: 2-5), the divorce rate rose from 2.5 per 1000 population in 1965 to 3.5 in 1970 to 4.8 in 1975." "No-Fault Divorce: Proposed Solutions to a National Tragedy," 1993 Journal of Legal Studies 2, 15, citing National Center for Health Statistics, 1988, 2-5, cited by Thomas B. Marvell, Divorce Rates and the Fault Requirement, 23 Law & Society Review 544, n.4, (1989).

Divorce increased almost 40 percent from 1970 to 1975.
Brian Willats, Breaking Up is Easy To Do, available from Michigan Family Forum, citing Statistics from National Center for Health Statistics, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Cited in Kenneth Jost and Marilyn Robinson, "Children and Divorce:What can be done to help children of divorce," CQ Researcher, June 7, 1991, pp. 353, 357.

The marriage rate has fallen nearly 30% since 1970 and the divorce rate has increased about 40%.
Ahlburg and DeVita, "New Realities," 4-12. Cited on page 5 ofThe Abolition of Marriage, by Maggie Gallagher

"In America, divorce used to be difficult to obtain and, usually, impossible without good reason: adultery, abandonment, abuse, alcoholism. In 1880, according to the historian Robert L. Griswold, one marriage in 21-fewer than 5 percent-ended in divorce. Over time, there have been peaks and valleys in the divorce rate, such as the period immediately following World War II, when returning soldiers found things rather different from how they had left them, or were themselves tremendously changed by war. "But beginning in the mid-1960s," writes Griswold, the divorce rate "again began to rise dramatically, fueled by ever-higher marital expectations, a vast expansion of wives moving into the work force, the rebirth of feminism, and the adoption of 'no fault' divorce (that is, divorce granted without the need to establish wrongdoing by either party) in almost every state." Griswold continues, "The last factor, although hailed as a progressive step that would end the fraud, collusion, and acrimony that accompanied the adversarial system of divorce, has had disastrous consequences for women and children.'"**[Powell, D. (2003) Divorce-on-Demand: Forget about Gay Marriage- What About the State of Regular Marriage? National Review, v55 i20. Retrieved June 9, 2004 from Expanded Academic ASAP.]  ((** Melanie adds: or if the stay at home parent, regardless of gender.))

Reconciliation after Separation A sociology professor from Baltimore posted this citation on the FAMILYSCI listserv:
"The only statistic I have is the one cited in my marriages/families textbook, but it may (or may not) be dated: "Approximately 10 percent of all currently married couples (9 percent of white women and 14 percent of black women) in the United States have separated and reconciled" (Wineberg and McCarthy, "Separtion and reconciliation in American marriages," Journal of
Divorce & Remarriage 29, 1993: 131-46). If there's a more recent cite, I haven't bumped across it yet."

Catholic Annulment Statistics:
"For the year 2002: of the 56,236 ordinary hearings for a declaration of nullity, 46,092 received an affirmative sentence. Of these, 343 were handed out in Africa, 676 in Oceania, 1,562 in Asia, 8,855 in Europe and 36,656 in America, of which 30,968 in North America and 5,688 in Central and South America."
>From "PRESENTATION OF INSTRUCTION ABOUT NORMS IN MARRIAGE CASES", VATICAN CITY, FEB 8, 2005 (VIS), posted at http://www.vatican.va/news_services/press/vis/dinamiche/a0_en.htm

What choices do I have if I want a divorce?  Which California Court do I file in? What documents do I file?  If my lawyer said I should claim child support, how should I fill in the form? How do I request Alimony? There are so many different forms, which do I use if I want custody of my children?