Mediation Mission:

To provide families, businesses and community organizations with an effective and affordable alternative to litigation to resolve conflicts , collaborate or dissolve partnerships, strategize and weather transitions. Processes utilize facilitation and communication processes that seek to empower those parties involved to develop effective,working agreements that may be filed in a court of law.

What is Mediation:

A voluntary process that seeks to create a non-adversarial, facilitated experience during which disputing parties themselves determine outcomes through the exploration of options, problem solving, and negotiation in a neutral and confidential setting.

Disputes are generally settled promptly, in a relatively inexpensive manner. Mediation can be shuttled between two parties in high conflict situations, although generally the process is facilitated jointly to help disputees identify their needs, clarify their issues, explore possible solutions, find and build upon common ground, negotiate solutions culminating in a written document that can be signed, notarized and filed with the court. 

The benefits of mediation are the empowerment of disputing parties to assume responsibility for making their own decisions; gaining increased communication and problem solving skill that often creates a baseline for continued constructive interaction (such as with a Parenting Plan); the diffusion of anger and the acknowledgment of feelings that often block readiness to conflict resolution; private and confidential process that is less costly and less stressful and time consuming than litigation.