As Colorado businesses begin reopening in early May, many local courts will continue delaying as many hearings as possible for the foreseeable future to avoid spreading COVID-19. If you are planning to divorce, or have recently filed, you may want to consider virtual mediation to move your case forward during this unprecedented time.
Virtual mediation allows you, your spouse and your attorneys to meet virtually. You don’t need a court hearing, but instead can have video conference call without having to leave home. Many divorce mediators are conducting these sessions right now, as courts are backlogged after being shut down for more than a month.
Advantages of virtual mediation
Some of the advantages of virtual mediation include the following:
- If you, your spouse or one of your children is at a higher risk from coronavirus symptoms, you can avoid encountering more people than you need to.
- You can control how quickly your divorce moves forward. All you need is to find times you, your spouse and your mediation attorneys can meet for virtual mediation sessions.
- You likely will reduce the costs of your divorce through divorce mediation. Anytime, you can avoid working through the court during a divorce, the process moves more smoothly, faster and avoids litigation costs. This is a big reason divorce mediation has become more common in recent years.
- You and your spouse will have more control over the details of your divorce settlement.
- Through virtual divorce mediation, you and your spouse will work to compromise and come to an agreement about dividing assets and child custody. That likely will make it easier to co-parent in the future because you’ve learned to negotiate better through the mediation process.
- Divorce mediation is private. Because it doesn’t go through court, divorce mediation is not part of public records. If you want to keep the details of your divorce settlement private, divorce mediation is the way to do that.
How to start virtual divorce mediation
If you are comfortable with the technology involved in virtual mediation sessions, contact an experienced divorce mediator about the process. Even if you’ve never been a part of virtual meetings, the process isn’t hard. Within minutes, you can have a virtual mediation session running and keep your divorce moving forward in the coming months.