Settle by Email – Online Mediation and Dispute Resolution

If you and your spouse are going through a divorce and have no children, the only decision you have to make is how to split your marital property.

If you can stay calm, and make that decision by yourselves, great. Otherwise, your best option is online mediation. In other words, an online mediator helps you throughout the decision making process, typically in four steps.

1. Assets/debts Identification
   You and your spouse fill in an Assets/debts worksheet, in order to identify everything you own and owe.
2. Assets/debts Understanding
   The online mediator makes sure that both of you are “on the same page”. That is, you both understand what each asset and debt means, and know where to find more information about it.
3. Assets/debts Valuation
   Some assets – bank accounts, stocks, credit card balance – are easy to determine. Others – your family home, retirement plan, business interests – are more difficult to value; besides, their division may have important tax ramifications. In these cases, the online mediator will discuss with you how to seek expert advice.
4. Assets/debts Division
   Once you and your spouse share and understand all the information about what you own and owe, the online mediator helps you negotiate an agreement that you both think is fair and workable.

The Benefits of Online Mediation
Conducted by entirely by email, online mediation is particularly suited to settle divorces without children. Not only you and your spouse can participate in mediation whenever you want and wherever you are. More importantly, you are given plenty of time:

• To think as long as you need before accepting your spouse’s offer
• To consult with the people you trust – other family members, friends, colleagues or your attorney
• To assess the consequences if you cannot reach an agreement in mediation

To learn more about how online mediation works, you can watch this 2-minute video.

Selling or buying a house is certainly one of the biggest decisions you can make in your lifetime. One way or another, it’s a decision you (and perhaps your entire family) have to live with for many years to come.

Online mediation is particularly suited to help you reach an agreement in this kind of cases. Whether you are the seller or the buyer, a neutral mediator can help you communicate with the other party and negotiate an agreement you can both live with. More importantly, online meditation gives you plenty of time

• To think as long as you need before accepting the other party’s offer
• To consult with the people you trust – other family members, colleagues or your attorney
• To assess the consequences if you and the other party can’t reach an agreement

To learn more about how online mediation works, you can watch this 2-minute video.

This morning Kevin sent me an email, asking why I ask both parties to share the cost of my online mediation services. Since this is an important question, let me answer it here on my website.

Kevin, it is a matter of balancing upfront the power between the parties. Let me clarify what I mean by imagining two different scenarios.

First Scenario – You and I have a dispute, and you ask me if I am willing to participate in online mediation - at your expense – in order to negotiate a resolution.

Just to show you that I am a reasonable person, I may well agree. But In the back of my mind I am thinking: (1) What the heck, I have nothing to lose. If I don’t like it, I can always drop out without losing a penny. (2) The fact that Kevin is asking me to settle our dispute means that he has more interest in negotiating an agreement than I do. And therefore, I have more power.

(From my experience as mediator, this scenario is the least likely to produce an agreement)

Second Scenario -You and I have a dispute, but you ask me to share equally the cost of negotiating an agreement through mediation.

This time, I will certainly think harder and longer (than the first scenario) before agreeing. But if I do, (1) I will be more motivated to participate in mediation (since I co-paid for it) and reach an agreement. (2) I will be implicitly admitting that both of us share the same interest to resolve our dispute. And therefore, neither of us has more power than the other.

(Needless to say, this scenario is the most likely to produce an agreement).

For spouses who cannot agree on the terms of their divorce, mediation has long been their best option because it is cheaper and less stressful than litigation. Now that most people own a computer and are used to email, mediation has got even better. A new form of mediation, called online mediation, makes the whole process more convenient and effective than ever before. This is why.

Before meeting husband and wife in his or her office, a divorce mediator sends them by email some questions to think about, and a list of information they need to have before making any decisions. This way, each spouse can think through their divorce issues in the comfort of their home — as long as they need, and when they are in their best physical, mental and emotional conditions.

This new form of mediation finally resolves three problems often present in face-to-face mediation sessions.

Problem #1. When husband and wife sit down with the mediator, they may be tired and overwhelmed. Hardly the best time to make important decisions which are bound to affect their lives for years to come.

Problem #2. When spouses arrive at the mediator’s office, either of them may not be fully prepared. Obviously, this drives the other spouse nuts, and makes the whole session long, costly, and fruitless.

Problem #3. Like everybody else, spouses do not like making decisions when they feel unsure about their consequences. They would rather have the time to consult with the people they trust – family members, friends, or perhaps their new significant other. Those, by the way, are the same people who later can play a key role in the success or failure of any agreement reached in mediation.

For the above reasons, divorce mediators now use online mediation both before and between face-to-face sessions.

For example, this is what a mediator would actually do to for John and Mary, a divorcing couple who need to decide what to do with their family home. Can either of them stay in the house and buy out the other spouse’s share? Or should they sell the house and split the proceeds?

First, the mediator sends John and Mary an email with a list of information they need to find — e.g. the current market value of their house; how much it would cost and how long it would take to sell it, should that become necessary; amount of equity; financial options to buy out the other spouse’s share; total cost of living in the house, including mortgage payments, property taxes, insurance, utilities, repairs, and so on.

Next, the mediator shares with John and Mary whatever information they gathered individually, and then emails them this message:

John and Mary:

Given the information you both have about your family home, what do you think are the options to resolve that issue in a way that might work for both of you? As soon as you have a proposal for your spouse to consider, let me know, and we will schedule our next mediation session in my office.

Your mediator

In sum, online mediation is very effective because it results in fewer and more productive face-to-face sessions. More importantly, it produces divorce settlement agreements which are more durable. They are reached after each spouse had enough time to ponder their options and the consequences of their decisions.