What Does Mediation Cost?
Alot less than litigation. Far less - but not just in terms in dollars and cents.
Whether you have children with your former partner or not, conflict is toxic and it lives on. How you manage the end of this relationship echoes far into your future. If you have children, it reverberates for generations. If you don't have kids together, your economic and emotional future and the future of others whom you know will be impacted by whether you seek a peacemaking transition or adopt the tired default strategy of divorce warfare.
One Mediator Solutions
The hourly rate for retired Judge Taylor is $700. Our mental health mediators and forensic CPA's charge between $400 /hour to $250/hour
How many hours may be required in order to close your matter with dignity and equal fairness depends on a number of factors. Most important is the degree of residual anger, resentment, and conflict that you and your partner feel or share. The truth is that higher conflict patterns of interaction require more time to resolve in mediation. Your disagreements over custody, co-parenting, and support add to the cost. The length of marriage and the categories of assets that you hold impact what must be considered and addressed.
Most less conflicted and less complicated cases require at least six to eight hours of mediator' sessions. This is a reasonable minimum for a low to mid-level conflict couple. More difficult or more complicated cases range between twelve to twenty-five hours. But really - it all depends upon you and your circumstances. It is our aim to be as efficient as possible. Once agreement is reached additional hours may be spent drafting those settlements, and the accompanying paperwork that California law requires.
Co-Mediated Resolutions
Where there are significant child custody disagreements, and/or a history of suspected or actual betrayal that significantly influences the perspective of one or both mediation participants, co-mediation may very positively increase the likelihood of a successful mediation and actually bring costs down overall.
Because we believe so strongly in the power of co-mediation and wish to support successful and enduring mediation outcomes, we are willing in some cases to underwrite the costs of co-mediation by lowering our individual fees for each Los Angeles FMS Team mediator.
In our opinions, co-mediation increases the likelihood of successfully resolving your matter. We encourage it strongly, while recognizing that the process may seem pricey. Detailed below, however, is a realistic financial appraisal of what the traditional adversarial path costs in economic terms and in comparison.
What Adversarial Litigation Will Cost Your Family
Two attorneys, between $5,000 and $25,000 apiece, up front. If the parties wind up waging divorce warfare over discovery, control of property, and child custody contests and assuming no appeals, add another $20,000 to $40,000 each (but possibly way much more) sometimes just in monthly billing.
If there are complex "income available for support" issues, or if a business needs to be valued for purposes of division and buy-out, at least one if not two forensic accounting experts will be required. Their fees range from a minimum of $5,000 to begin to $50,000 to $100,000 (but there is no ceiling) overall in particularly conflicted or complicated tracing and property characterization cases. Since no one is likely to agree on much, sprinkle in one real estate expert for each side to value real estate, and personal property appraisers too.
If there are move-away or difficult custody contests, at least one mental health expert will be appointed by the Court to evaluate each family member, their family members, and possible a host of others, and then make recommendations; often times one party is dissatisfied with these results, and may hire a second expert to counter the opinions of the first. These fees begin at $15,000 and can easily run up to between $25,000 and $35,000 per evaluator.
In contrast, in mediation the parties share the cost of any outside experts that may be required. There are no discovery battles or law and motion/request for order skirmishes.
Hopefully it is obvious that uncooperative litigation conduct will spend your children's inheritances down to the bone in short order, and leave an overall resentment and frustration that will be self-perpetuating for years to come. Possibly court hearings will continue until the parties or their families who support them financially run out of money or patience. We ask you to consider this question: How should I now best budget my resources?
Why not consider mediation as an alternative? Whether your case is just beginning or you are considering mediation because you've now learned some painful lessons, our goal is to get you out of this mess intact!