New York Alimony & Spousal Maintenance Laws

Mediation vs Mediation Arbitration

What’s the difference between mediation and med/arb which is short form mediation/arbitration. The difference is that in difference is that in mediation, the mediator, the neutral party, only acts as a facilitator and never makes a decision, only helps the parties identify, discuss and resolve the issues between them based on their own criteria. In mediation/arbitration, med/arb, the mediator does that and then if the parties are unable to reach a resolution, the mediator, then acting as an arbitrator, is empowered to make the decision for the parties and that’s a binding decision for them.

Common Questions During Mediation

Sometimes when I’m mediating, my clients ask me, “You just decide,” or “What do you think is fair? You tell us, what do other people do?” And this is a question that makes me somewhat uncomfortable because what other people or what I think is fair is really biased by my own life, my own experience, my training as a lawyer.

It’s not really about what’s important to them. And they are really in a much better position to make those decisions for themselves. And they actually have the power and ability to do it. What leads them to ask me to make the decision for them is fear, pain, sorrow. And the resistance of going through that process and wanting to make those decisions for themselves so much easier in some ways is to hand it over to someone else and say, “You just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”  

This is Katherine Miller. Thanks for watching YourTango’s Quickies. Connect with me at http://www.yourtango.com/experts/katherine_miller. I’d like to help you negotiate a good divorce. Visit me online at kem-law.com.

By: Katherine Miller