In a previous column, I wrote that, putting the romance and courtship aspects aside, a marriage is a basic civil contract between two consenting adults. If one of the party’s to that contract wants to terminate the contract, the remedy is to file a Complaint for Divorce. A Divorce Complaint moves the matter through the Courts where the marriage contract is eventu­ally dissolved and the economic and parenting issues between the two parties to the marriage contract are resolved in some fashion.

Traditionally, a divorce goes through what is known as the adversarial system of dispute resolution. In the adversarial system, each spouse generally retains a lawyer who advocates their client’s position and draws attention to weaknesses in the other party’s position. Although the adversarial system has perse­vered for centuries, sometimes it is not the most utilitarian way of dispute resolution. This is prob­ably more apparent in family law than any other field of law.

Many difficult divorce mat­ters remind me of the “knot of war” metaphor articulated by Nikita Khrushchev who was once the Leader of the now dis­banded Soviet Union. In 1962, while attempting to negotiate a resolution of the Cuban mis­sile crisis with President John F. Kennedy, Khrushchev asserted that the United States and Soviet Union had tied a “knot of war” and each side was pulling on the end of a rope with the “knot of war” in the middle. The harder each side pulled, the tighter the knot would become. The only way the knot could become undone is if each side would “relax the force of strain” on the ends of the rope. (I am not so old to personally recall the Khrushchev/ Kennedy dialogue; I learned of it in Robert Kennedy’s classic book on the Cuban Missile Crisis - “Thirteen Days” – and I cite that book for this metaphor).

I am often reminded of the “knot of war” metaphor when I am involved in a difficult divorce case where neither side will give an inch.

A divorce does not have to become a “knot of war”. Our legal system has evolved to include many forms of what are known as “alternate dispute resolution”. Although the adver­sarial system is still the main focus of our legal system, other forms of dispute resolution are evolving. The granting of a Final Judgment of Divorce is really just a formality. The real trick is getting the economic and parenting issues resolved. While only a Superior Court Judge can grant a judgment of divorce, there are many different ways that parties can resolve their economic and parenting issues without a trial and outside the adversarial system. One method of resolving disputes which has come into recent favor is media­tion.

Mediation is a means of resolving disputes with the utili­zation of one or more impartial mediators who try to facilitate settlements informally and in a non-adversarial manner. A com­petent, well trained mediator will work with the parties to try to get them to reach an agreement that is in their best interests and, ideally, saves them thousands of dollars in liti­gation costs.

People often get mediation confused with Arbitration. Arbitration is tantamount to having a private Judge decide the case. There are many retired Judges performing arbitrations and there are also private attor­neys, well versed in Family law, that conduct private arbitration. One advantage of arbitration over the traditional system is that the parties can set their own ground rules and the case can move through arbitration much faster than it can move through a trial in the Court system. A Family Court Judge has hun­dreds of cases and may have to deal with numerous cases on any given day. A private arbitrator can focus directly on your case.

The Goldenberg, Mackler Law Firm offers mediation and arbitration services. Jeffrey Light, who is of counsel to the firm, is not only accredited as a commercial and divorce mediator by the New Jersey Association of Professional Mediators, but is also the immediate Past President of Community Mediation Services, an organization that performs custody/parenting mediation for the Superior Court of New Jersey in Atlantic County.

I have 18 years of experi­ence as a family attorney and I am certified by the New Jersey Supreme Court in matrimonial law. I have taught an accred­ited course on Family Law at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey for 15 years. Certainly, cases come along that have novel issues and where reasonable minds could differ as to the appropriate resolution. However, a significant amount of cases that come through my office are cases where I can pre­dict the outcome to a reasonable degree after spending an hour or two with the client. It then becomes a matter of getting to the finish line in an expeditious fashion.

If you have an interest in taking your case to mediation or arbitration you can call me at 609-646-0222 to discuss the options and efficacy of taking your case through alternate dis­pute resolution.