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Settlement Conference Mediation - Seattle Divorce Services

What Happens In Settlement Conference Mediation?

For many years now, King County Superior Court has required that parties engage in some kind of dispute resolution process prior to proceeding to trial. The most common kind of dispute resolution process used is a form of mediation called a settlement conference The object of this type of mediatio...

Who Pays for the Divorce?

In Washington State, each party is responsible for hiring and paying their own attorney, including any initial deposits as well as any subsequent bills. So this means that each spouse pays for the divorce based on their personal choice of attorney. However, the court does have the authority to alloc...

How Long Does a Divorce Take?

I cannot speak as to other states, but in Washington State there is a minimum 90 day long waiting period from the time the divorce case is filed with the court until the time that the court can finalize the divorce. However, that requires the parties to have reached agreement on all issues and ha...

What is Early Mediation?

Early Mediation is typically an intervention early in the case to try and keep from going into litigation. In other words, it is an attempt to see if the parties can work cooperatively to resolve the case before heading down the adversarial path. At this stage in the case, the parties are wanting...

What is Litigation?

Litigation is the process lawyers engage in to prepare and take a case to court (or an arbitrator) for a decision. The role of the attorney is to build their own case and to find ways to discredit the other side's case. A big part of this is gathering information - obtaining documents, interviewing...

What is a Settlement Conference?

Here in King County, and increasingly in other counties as well, parties are required to go through some kind of dispute resolution process prior to trial to see if the case can in fact be settled. The most common type of pre-trial dispute resolution in litigated cases is the settlement conference....

Do You Want Your Divorce to Stay Out of Court?

Many people heading into divorce dread the prospect of ending up in a court battle. They don't want the acrimony or the finger-pointing, they don't want the long drawn-out process, and they don't want to make an enemy of their spouse, even if they aren't close anymore. There are actually a number...

Do You WANT A Nasty Divorce?

In a recent article entitled How to Have the Nastiest Divorce Possible, Andrea Vacca wrote about several ways to guarantee the a divorce will be long, expensive, and bitter. Of course her purpose is not actually to encourage nasty divorces; it is intended to point out some of the things people can d...

Does Hiring A Lawyer Increase The Odds of Going to Trial?

There is a common belief that hiring a divorce lawyer increases your chances of going to trial. Actually, we believe just the opposite. We have seen many people representing themselves end up at trial because they did not know how to prepare for settlement discussions or how to negotiate effectively...