Mandatory divorce mediation pushed

The key to resolving a contentious divorce could involve divorcing your attorney.

That's what members of an ad hoc committee suggested to Utah lawmakers Monday during a meeting of the Subcommittee on Divorce, Child Custody and Visitation.

Committee members pointed to a 12-year study of contested divorces by the University of Virginia, which showed that when divorcing parties were forced to undergo mediation instead of heading to court, 80 percent of those cases reached an out-of-court settlement. Of the cases that were not required to undergo mediation, 80 percent entered a full-blown custody hearing.

Court mediator and committee member Brian Florence told lawmakers that in a 12-year follow-up to those divorce cases, the study found that participation of the non-residential parent was more frequent in many aspects of the child's life. Telephone contact between children and their non-residential parent was also significantly higher.

Florence said this is yet more empirical proof that divorce mediation should be made mandatory in Utah. It is currently optional, but many say few in the public know about it.

That isn't to say attorneys should be removed from the divorce process altogether, said committee chairwoman Lori Nelson, herself an attorney. But in an effort to find a solution to the growing number of divorce cases that are clogging Utah's courts, Nelson suggested that court-appointed mediation be emphasized.

It is estimated that in 3rd District Court alone, some 600 divorces are filed every month. Statewide, Utah's courts see between 12,000 and 13,000 divorces a year.

Nelson said it has typically been the assumption that in order for mediation to work, it had to be voluntary. The University of Virginia study, she said, shows otherwise.

"You can require people, you can mandate it and it will still work," Nelson said.

Lawmakers said they were impressed by the study and expressed an interest, particularly in how it could save court resources and lessen the need for new judges.

Sen. Gregory Bell, R-Farmington, said he noticed the study also found that mediation had a therapeutic role in a divorce.

"They kind of worked through their grief and anger, and their pain, and they worked through it," Bell said.

Price is also an issue. Nelson said some of her divorce cases fought in court run up to as much as $25,000, whereas a mediated case can cost as little as $2,500.

Sen. Patrice Arent, D-Salt Lake City, said as an attorney herself she thought it was particularly a benefit to low-income families, who could take money out of the hands of attorneys and invest it into their families.

"I think one of the beauties of this thing is keeping the lawyers out of this," Arent said.