0:04
when you’re comparing mediation
0:06
collaborative and litigation I’m always
0:08
going to say that litigation is more
0:10
expensive now that doesn’t mean you
0:12
can’t reach agreements in in litigation
0:15
you can you can have two attorneys that
0:17
cooperate and and work together and
0:19
reach an agreement but in most cases
0:21
it’s going to be more expensive and the
0:23
reason is because as you’re going
0:25
through the divorce and you’re preparing
0:28
you know what is necessary in order to
0:30
either get to an agreement or get to a
0:32
judge to adjudicated a decision there’s
0:34
information gathering and there’s
0:36
analyzing that needs to happen to do
0:39
that you are uh in a process with just
0:42
your attorney and so you’re perhaps
0:45
hiring experts you are having your
0:47
attorney do the work that a financial
0:49
person maybe could do a lot less
0:51
expensive like in the collaborative
0:53
process you bring in individual team
0:55
members who are doing the work that they
0:58
have the most knowledge and training on
1:00
instead of having the attorney do
1:02
everything which is what you’re doing in
1:04
litigation and the attorney is
1:06
overseeing everything and the attorney
1:08
is advising the client so it’s not as
1:11
much of an empowering process and so
1:14
that tends to be more expensive and
1:16
oftentimes in litigation the the other
1:19
side is doing the same thing so you’ve
1:21
got duplicate efforts going on which are
1:24
costly and then sometimes you have
1:26
dueling experts you know you have
1:28
experts who are op in on the same thing
1:31
and making completely different opinions
1:34
and then that that has to be resolved
1:36
and that can become more expensive and
1:38
you often have to have Discovery because
1:40
there isn’t that transparency layer that
1:43
you have in mediation and and
1:46
collaborative in collaborative it’s a
1:49
requirement as part of the process that
1:52
if there’s a mistake or a misund
1:54
understanding made by the other side on
1:55
a particular issue that gets brought to
1:58
the table and corrected right away so no
2:00
one’s taking advantage of uh of of the
2:03
other so litigation most expensive
2:06
collaborative um I would say it’s the
2:08
next level however as I said in
2:11
Sacramento we are working on trying to
2:13
create a model for that for modest mean
2:16
income families that is is in the
2:19
process of being developed again as I
2:21
said um collaborative is is um a
2:25
front-loaded process so you are paying a
2:28
retainer for your attorney
2:30
and your mental health professionals and
2:33
your financial person just as a starting
2:35
point however that doesn’t mean the
2:37
retainers necessarily get used up or you
2:40
know or the process isn’t able to be
2:42
completed within those retainers which
2:45
it usually is so it ends up being um a
2:48
less expensive process than litigation
2:51
by far mediation is the least expensive
2:55
because you only have one attorney who’s
2:57
not representing either one of you
2:59
that’s just fac facilitating the
3:00
agreement and creating the the marital
3:02
settlement agreement which is the end
3:04
result um that becomes the party’s
3:06
divorce judgment however sometimes the
3:08
mediator does need to bring in expertise
3:10
such as you know an expert for uh
3:13
valuing a business or determining a
3:15
pension Etc so that that can still be
3:18
something that can add to the cost in
3:19
mediation as well but that’s kind of the
3:21
tier of cost as uh those three models um
3:26
would dictate