Divorce Settlement in Orange County
Mediation & Divorce – Helping You Avoid the Courtroom
A divorce ends in one of four ways: death, reconciliation, settlement,
or trial. Many times it is a mixture of the last two; spouses will usually
settle on some issues, but go to trial to get a judge to decide how to
resolve other issues. It is always recommended to a client to try and
settle. Always. However, there is a catch, one should only settle only
when one has sufficient information on which to make an intelligent decision.
That implies knowing what they are settling about, they must have done
at the very east 70% of the discovery before making any decision.
For example, if one spouse has a business they are running full time while
the other has another job or is a stay-at-home parent, how can they divide
the business fairly if the latter does not know what the business is worth.
Maybe they would get overpaid. However, if there is a settlement in this
situation, without the help of legal and financial experts involved, the
spouse who is not running the business will most likely be underpaid significantly.
A simple question to help clarify: Who between those two has more knowledge
about the financial state of the business?
When Settling, Be Informed & Decide Intelligently
It is our policy to always send a settlement offer before going to court
to help our clients save time and resources. The question to ask then
is “when should the settlement offer be sent?”
Mediation is a form of working things out to trial and settle a case. However
even in the realm of Mediation both spouses and their mediation attorney
need to have enough information from which they can mediate the case.
Moreover, especially in high conflict cases, each party may desire to
have their own representative in the process to help them understand whether
or not they are making a sound decision.
As a concept mediation is great, you have one individual who cannot take
sides. This neutral third-party tries to help the spouses meet some form
of a midpoint. However, who said such midpoint is fair. Just because a
spouse says their business is worth $1 million and the other says it is
worth $500,000 does not mean the middle point is $750,000.
Therefore, anyone who is looking to settle or mediate should do some from
a position of knowledge, with enough information they can make an intelligent
decision. As your Orange County divorce mediation lawyers, part of our
role is to counsel you and perform the necessary research to finally give
you an opinion as to what your ranges are so that you make an educated decision.
Call Moshtael Family Law at or
contact us online to discuss your situation.
