—Mediation
The cheapest thing you will ever do is agree.
One of our directors is an accredited family mediator. Where mediation is appropriate we recommend it even though it earns us a fraction of what the alternative would, because a parenting plan you built is obeyed and one imposed on you is litigated again in two years.
01The two routes
Held side by side, the whole way down.
Who decides
The two of you
A magistrate who meets you for an hour
Typical cost
R12,000 – R25,000, shared
R80,000 upward, each
Typical duration
Four to eight weeks
Nine months to three years
What is on record
Nothing. It is without prejudice
Affidavits, in a public file
What the children see
Two parents in a room
Two parents who stopped speaking
If it fails
You litigate, having lost weeks
There is nothing after it
The figures are what matters of this kind have actually cost in this practice. Yours may differ, and we will tell you where we think it lands before you commit to either route.
02How a mediation runs
You are never put in a room and left to fight.
First
Separately, first
Each of you meets the mediator alone. Nothing said in that meeting is repeated to the other parent without your leave.
Session one
The list, not the history
The first joint session builds a list of what must actually be decided. It is almost always shorter than either of you expected.
Sessions two onward
One item at a time
Holidays. School. Medical decisions. The ordinary week. Agreement on the easy ones makes the hard ones smaller.
The end of it
A written parenting plan
Drafted by the mediator, checked by each of your attorneys, then registered with the Family Advocate or made an order of court.
03When mediation is the wrong tool
Three situations in which we will tell you not to.
Where there has been violence or intimidation
Mediation assumes two people who can bargain as equals. Where one of you is afraid of the other that assumption is false, and the process will produce an agreement that is not really an agreement.
Where assets are being hidden
Mediation has no discovery. If you believe there is money you cannot see, you need a process that can compel disclosure.
Where one parent will not attend in good faith
A parent using the sessions to delay, or to gather material, is not mediating. We will say so early rather than let you pay for months of it.