Under the best of circumstances, divorce is difficult for many reasons. And using standard litigation to resolve complex issues like where children live, visitation schedules, education, and health costs is often emotionally difficult, expensive, and negatively impacts family relationships.

Our office is offering mediation services with a progressive approach to alternative dispute resolution (ADR). Our goals differ from the standard process of divorce in three significant ways:

• We aim to be more affordable and take less time to process than court-ordered agreements.
• We support cooperative parenting; protecting the children's best interests is paramount.
• We encourage the parties to retain their decision-making power to reach their own resolution, at times using creative remedies and processes.

We've found that being affordable, non-adversarial, fair-minded, and iterative (several brief meetings rather than long mediation marathons) results in reduced conflict, faster resolutions, and better supports the needs of children and parents.

As and attorney serving in Utah for many years, I've seen it: couples being pitted against each other eliminating a cooperative spirit, fault-finding missions discarding chances for mutual agreement, and creating toxic environments by focusing on assigning blame rather than resolving issues. These practices often conclude in painful and hostile outcomes for the divorcing couples and their children.