How Long Does Divorce Mediation Take?

When considering divorce, one of the biggest concerns is how long the process will take. Litigation can stretch on for years, dragging couples through endless court dates, legal filings, and mounting expenses. Mediation, on the other hand, offers a much more efficient path — one that puts control back in the hands of the couple.

Unlike litigation, where court schedules dictate the pace, mediation allows couples to work through their divorce on their own timeline. In many cases, the process can be completed in as little as six to nine months, a fraction of the time compared to traditional litigation. But what does that timeline actually look like? And what factors can influence the duration?

Let’s break down the mediation process step by step and explore why it’s often the faster, less stressful option for resolving a divorce.

Transcript:

Karen Salib (0:00) Why Divorce Litigation is a Lengthy Process

To answer the question of how long the mediation process takes, I think it’s important to understand what the alternative is and to understand the litigation process. So when you’re involved in a litigation process, there are just certain steps that you need to go through in order to move your matter forward through the courts. So when we’re talking about litigation through the court, and, you know, I have sort of firsthand experience being a divorce litigator for about 10 years, that process can be incredibly lengthy. There are just certain steps that we have to go through as attorneys.

We have to be sure that we’re doing our due diligence to zealously represent our client. And in doing so, there’s just a lot of steps that need to happen through the process. Even if there’s good opposing counsel on the other side, there are still just lots of circumstances where there aren’t agreements, negotiations aren’t going well, and you have to go to court. So once you decide that you’re going to court and you have to make sure that you get on the judge’s list, there’s also sometimes a process that you don’t just get in front of a judge.

You have to go through a step where you’re meeting with other court personnel before you can even get to the judge level. So in that instance, if you’re asking the court to schedule you for a conference, for example, that might be weeks or months out. So during that period of time, you know, you’re waiting around or perhaps your attorneys are having conversations, and at that conference, when that date finally comes, sometimes there still isn’t a resolution, and you have to make another application to the court to actually get in front of that judge, to be able to be in front of somebody who can make a final decision for you. 

So a lot of times when you’re in between those listing dates, it can be, you know, you can be engaging with experts, you can be still expending a lot of money, trying to see if you can settle things before that hearing happens, before that conference happens. But all that to say, you know, the months are going by, you know, they quickly turn into years, and the process can be, you know, really, really lengthy from a litigation perspective. 

Karen Salib (2:13) How Long Divorce Mediation Takes

So in mediation, we try our best to really consolidate that timeframe to really make sure that the process is as efficient as it possibly can be. In our experience at New Hope Divorce Mediation, we really hope to try to get people through the mediation process in about six to nine months. We find that the mediation process itself tends to take about two to four months. And that would be, you know, getting documents together, you know, providing them to our office, meeting with us for the mediation sessions, and having hope, hopefully, the agreements prepared at the end of that process. That tends to take about two to four months. 

The other part of the process to understand is the divorce process as well. So that depends on a number of factors. It depends on what state you’re in, and it also depends on whether or not the county that you’re in or the state that you’re in offers e-filing, so electronic submission of documents, or if they require you to mail them in or to drop them off or to otherwise give them to you in a paper copy. So with all of that said, regardless of if it is electronic filing or mailing the filings in, we’re hoping that that process tends to take about three to four months. 

It can take a little bit more time depending on where you are. For example, in New Jersey, there has been an issue of judicial vacancies. So there’s been a lot of stress on the court system in a post-Covid world. So in that instance, we have seen some delays. So you do have to kind of pack your patience in the filing process, but we do hope that that ends in about three to four months as well. So overall, six to nine months, I think, is a really reasonable expectation on resolving your case. And that would be from start to finish, which really, really in the grand scheme of things is light speed compared to the alternative of litigation. 

Josh Kershenbaum (4:15) 

Yeah, and it’s really in comparison to the litigation process that you can see that mediation is light speed. I think what a lot of people very understandably don’t appreciate is that it is just much easier to get married than it is to get divorced. 

You can get married more or less instantaneously. Elvis can marry you pretty much instantaneously. There is no way to get divorced instantaneously. It’s not possible. It is much more difficult to untie a knot than it is to tie it. There’s a lot more details that have to get worked out. 

So while we wish that there was a way, even people who are very amicable, who have it all worked out, who don’t have complicated finances, don’t have children, don’t own a home even, they cannot get divorced instantaneously. Even they have to write up their agreement, have to file their agreement, have to wait for the court. So while six to nine months might sound like a long time, and it might feel like a long time when you’re going through a painful process like divorce, by comparison to going to court, compared to what all of your alternatives are, it is actually lightspeed. 

Karen Salib (5:35) 

Yeah. And I think the other thing to keep in mind too is that a lot of the hard work is front loaded. A lot of the hard work is done in those first two to three months. So that’s where you’re going through and you’re organizing your financial information. You’re meeting for the sessions, you’re doing all of the hard work to be thoughtfully considering the options. And you know, going through this process, that can be kind of emotional. But at the end of the day, in that two to three month time frame, most people are able to successfully resolve their financial matters and their parenting plan. 

So at that point, the hard work is sort of over. And moving forward, it is certainly all of that has to happen. You know, we have to have a complaint that’s filed. We have to go through certain steps with the court in a certain order, in a certain way.

But at the end of the day, that process is more, is more straightforward and is more of an administrative process where at the end of the day, the issuance is the judgment and divorce or the divorce decree. But there really is. The heavy lifting has already been done. 

Josh Kershenbaum (6:45) How Mediation Gives You More Control Over Your Divorce Timeline

Right. I think another thing about how long it takes is what are the aspects of the process that you actually have control over? 

So, when you are litigating, you don’t have a lot of control over how long it takes because you’re on other people’s time, you’re on your lawyer’s time, you’re on the other lawyer’s time, you’re on the court’s time. Mediation is set up so that you’re on your time for the most part until you’re actually filing the papers in court. When you are on the court’s time, throughout the entire process, you have a lot of control over how long it takes. You have control over how long it takes you to pull your financial documents together and share them with your mediator. You have control over how hard you work in the mediation process to keep the process moving along. 

And because you’re there to cooperate with one another, you’re not wasting time talking through other people, you’re talking directly to each other. And many people in between mediation sessions oftentimes resolve issues between the two of them and bring it back to the mediator and say, we worked this out since the last time we were together. So you are empowered to move this along as fast as you can, as efficiently as you can, with support from your mediator. So it really isn’t a big surprise that mediation is a whole lot faster than going to court, because the whole process is designed to be that way. 

Karen Salib (8:13) Divorce Mediation Moves at the Pace You Want

Yeah. 

And I think the last thing I would say about the timeframe is that while most people do wanna move forward as quickly as possible and they are highly motivated to move quick, we don’t have to, if that’s not fitting in your life. We have a lot of people who have young kids or have gone through the mediation process, and God forbid there’s an illness or an injury or something that is causing them to say, “Hey, listen, we need to all just take a breath to pause. We’re going to leave the mediation on hold for a moment. We’re going to deal with these other life circumstances that have come up, and we’re going to come back to mediation when it’s a comfortable time, whether that’s because of a life circumstance, because one or both of the parties just doesn’t feel prepared to proceed.”

They need a minute to think about things. They need a minute to consult with experts or consult with their attorney to just think things over a little bit more thoroughly. You also have control in that respect where you don’t have to move forward at light speed if you’re not ready to. So really it comes back to the control of the mediation participants themselves that they have control over the process. 

It’s not, you know, we know that there’s a date that’s listed on November 1st, and come hell or high water, you’re going to court on November 1, whether you’re ready or not. Very seldom the courts offer continuances and, certainly if it’s warranted, you can try to have the court adjust to your schedule. But certainly the mediation process is a much better option for those that want to keep the schedule in their control as well.