Mediating California Domestic Partnership Dissolutions
Los Angeles Same-Sex Family Mediations
Mediation offers huge creative freedom and value to gays and lesbians who are transitioning out of their intimate relationships.
Until the late 1990s there was no family law based framework for resolving property and support disputes between same-sex couples in California. The only body of law that provided limited, and purely economic, protections for gays and lesbians was derived from longstanding civil breach of contract concepts and remedies that came to be first applied in 1976 to non-married (opposite gendered) cohabitants in the now somewhat infamous "Marvin" decision (think "palimony").
You lacked a framework that supported the traditional types of expectations and protections that opposite gendered couples assumed and enjoyed as a matter of right. Hence, there was uncertainty over what would happen if the relationship ended, or a suppressed outrage at the vulnerability of the weaker partner within the court system when it did.
All of this naturally generated a distrust of the courts, of lawyers, and of related professionals. It also resulted in huge imbalances of power and gross over-reaching, where one winning partner might take all because the law effectively sanctioned both people by imposing legalistic interpretations about property ownership, or support rights, that did not at all track how the parties dealt with each other during their time together.
As a result, you learned intuitively long ago that the best solutions are those that you devise yourself. The expectations of same-sex couples, acquired over years and even generations of prejudice and disenfranchisement, were simply different from what the others experienced.
To some extent, this suspicion and consternation continues today.
It is just a fact that the gay and lesbian experience of partnership dissolution (and those who were married during the window) differs hugely from that of 'straight' couples. This makes Mediation and Co-Mediation a highly advantageous alternate approach for assisting you in your intimate transitions, particularly because mediation allows for resolutions that don't depend upon the law. Mediation is grounded in honoring the core values that interest and concern you!
