You walk away with an agreement you helped create, not one imposed by a judge who’s never met your family. Your kids are spared the trauma of watching their parents fight in court, and you’ve kept the door open for respectful co-parenting down the road.
The financial stress is manageable because you’ve spent a fraction of what litigation costs. Instead of 15 months tied up in court proceedings, you’ve resolved everything in a few focused sessions and can start rebuilding.
Your personal business stays private. No court records for neighbors to look up, no public hearings where strangers learn about your finances or family disputes.
Level Dispute Resolution brings decades of family law experience specifically focused on mediation and conflict resolution. We’ve helped Orange County families avoid the courthouse for years, and we understand what works.
Stanton’s working families face real financial pressures. With a median household income around $81,000 and nearly half of residents raising children, you need solutions that make sense for your actual situation, not cookie-cutter approaches that ignore your reality.
We maintain strict neutrality and confidentiality. We don’t take sides or push you toward any particular outcome. We facilitate conversations that help you find solutions that work for your family’s specific needs and circumstances.
First, we meet with both of you to understand your situation and explain the mediation process. This initial session helps everyone get comfortable and sets clear expectations about what we can accomplish together.
Next, we work through the key issues systematically: property division, child custody arrangements, support calculations, and any other matters that need resolution. Our role is keeping discussions productive and helping you explore options you might not have considered on your own.
When disagreements come up, we help you work through them without taking sides. We don’t make decisions for you, but we guide you toward solutions based on what’s actually important to each of you rather than legal positions.
Once you’ve reached agreements, we prepare all the necessary paperwork for court filing. Your mediated agreement becomes an official court order, giving it the same legal weight as any divorce decree while avoiding the time and expense of litigation.
Ready to get started?
Our divorce mediation covers every aspect you need resolved: property division, child custody schedules, visitation arrangements, child support calculations, spousal support determinations, and debt allocation. We also handle post-judgment modifications when life circumstances change later.
For Stanton families, this comprehensive approach is particularly valuable. With the area’s diverse economic landscape and many dual-income households, cookie-cutter solutions don’t work. We help create agreements that reflect your actual financial situation and parenting needs.
We use transparent flat-fee pricing, so you know exactly what you’ll pay from the start. No surprise hourly charges, no escalating bills if discussions take longer than expected. This predictability matters when you’re already dealing with the financial uncertainty that comes with major life changes.
Our scheduling works around your life, not court calendars. We can meet evenings or weekends if needed, and we move at whatever pace makes sense for your situation rather than rushing you through decisions that will affect your family for years.
Divorce mediation typically costs between $3,000-$7,000 total for both parties, while contested divorce through the courts averages $30,000 per person or more. The difference comes from avoiding lengthy discovery, depositions, and the back-and-forth motions that litigation requires.
Our flat-fee structure means you know the cost upfront. No surprise bills if discussions take extra sessions or if complex issues require more time to resolve. Most Stanton clients complete mediation in 3-5 sessions over 2-4 months, compared to 15+ months for court cases.
The savings aren’t just financial. You avoid the emotional cost of an adversarial process and the stress of having your personal life examined in public proceedings. Your energy goes toward solving problems rather than fighting battles.
It’s completely normal to hit roadblocks on certain issues, and we’re trained to help work through these sticking points. Often what seems like an impossible disagreement has workable solutions once we dig into the real concerns underneath.
If you agree on most issues but get stuck on one or two, you can still use those agreements and only litigate the unresolved matters. This partial mediation approach still saves significant time and money compared to fighting about everything in court.
If mediation truly isn’t working, you haven’t lost anything by trying. The discussions remain confidential and can’t be used against either party later. You’ll have a clearer understanding of the real issues, which often makes any subsequent litigation more focused and less expensive.
Most couples complete mediation in 3-5 sessions spread over 2-4 months, significantly faster than the 15+ months contested divorces typically take in California courts. The timeline depends on your situation’s complexity and how efficiently you can work through the issues together.
Straightforward cases with minimal assets and no children might resolve in 2-3 sessions. More complex situations involving businesses, significant assets, or detailed custody arrangements might take 5-7 sessions. Even longer mediations finish much faster than litigation.
We work around your schedule rather than court availability. Sessions can be scheduled evenings or weekends if needed, and we can space them to give you time to consider decisions without pressure while keeping momentum going.
You’re not required to have separate attorneys during mediation, but many people choose to consult with lawyers before finalizing agreements. This gives you independent review of the terms to ensure your interests are protected.
As mediators, we remain neutral and can’t give legal advice to either party. We explain how the law typically works and help you understand implications of different choices, but we can’t advocate for one person over the other.
Some couples have attorneys review the mediated agreement before signing, while others feel comfortable proceeding without separate counsel. Having lawyers involved doesn’t prevent mediation – it just adds an extra protection layer. You can get legal advice while still avoiding the adversarial litigation process.
Mediation can address virtually all divorce-related matters: property division, debt allocation, child custody and visitation schedules, child support, spousal support, retirement account divisions, and even complex issues like business valuations or professional practice divisions.
We also handle post-divorce modifications when circumstances change significantly. Job loss, remarriage, relocation, or children’s changing needs can all require adjusting existing support or custody arrangements. Mediation lets you modify agreements without returning to court.
Mediation’s flexibility allows creative solutions courts often can’t provide. We might structure spousal support to decrease as someone completes job training, create custody schedules around shift work, or develop property division plans that work with your actual financial situation rather than rigid formulas.
Yes, once your mediated agreement is submitted to and approved by the court, it becomes a legally binding court order with the same enforceability as any divorce decree. Both parties are legally obligated to follow the terms you’ve agreed upon.
The mediation process itself is confidential and non-binding – you can walk away anytime if it’s not working. But once you both sign the final agreement and it’s filed with the court, it carries full legal weight.
If either party violates the terms later, the other can seek enforcement through the court system just like any other court order. This gives you the collaborative process benefits while ensuring the final result has real enforceability when you need it.
Local Resources
Useful Links
Here are some lawyer-related links:
Other Services we provide in Stanton
Company
