Divorce was once the process angry spouses used to condemn and ridicule each other in public, in a system designed to produce conflict, with an absolute assurance that at least one of the two will lose... and often with an outcome amounting to a loss for both sides, with outrageous legal bills and a personal bitterness toward each other far beyond the hard feelings that had one or both file for divorce in the first place.

    And while many divorces still end up being exactly that, and with some spouses there is little way to avoid it, increasingly courts are trying to reduce the conflict and develop ways to resolve matters with minimal bitterness, lower costs, and greater control of each party to assure that the result is something he or she can live with.

    Part of that process is discussed in the link on general divorce information dealing with Irreconcilable Differences divorces, Marital Dissolution Agreements and stipulated grounds for divorce, and part of it is also discussed at

    But Tennessee's Supreme Court and the state legislature have taken it a step further with a mediation process intended to find areas where the parties agree, and to then see what the parties might be willing to compromise on to allow a complete agreement, or to at least narrow the issues that have to be argued before the judge.  Believe it or not, in the past some judges have insisted that they were going to hear the entire divorce, and wanted to hear proof of fault and parental fitness and everything even if the parties were in agreement on all of those issues and were only unable to agree on something as minor as who would get a coffee table and a TV.

    I have honestly seen judges in the past who would refuse to accept any sort of partial agreement, and who would insist on hearing an entire case instead of limiting the focus to narrow areas of disagreement.  Creating conflict where there had minutes before been agreement.  The example with the coffee table and a TV was not made up.  The judge insisted on hearing the entire matter, and on his own asked questions over my objection about their sex life, trying to find out if there was anything about the husband's behavior that was "deviant" to provide further grounds for divorce, and forcing the wife to answer under oath, in front of a crowded courtroom full of strangers, testifying about her husband's efforts to get her to engage in anal intercourse.  This was nothing she wanted to bring up in the divorce, nothing she wanted to discuss in front of a courtroom full of strangers, and certainly nothing that was going to result in future cooperation in the raising of their young daughter.

    Must judges now embrace the changes encouraging informal resolution of as much of the divorce as possible, and in particular child custody issues.  The informal agreements can (and should) be reduced to writing and included as part of the final order of divorce signed by the judge, and mediation is a process intended to bring about agreement.

    The changes essentially amount to giving both the court and the parties extra tools to try to bring agreement.  One of those tools in Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 31, commonly referred to merely as Rule 31.  Either party can ask the court to order mediation, in which the parties meet with a professionally trained and certified mediator who will meet with the parties and with their attorneys if desired, generally discussing the case with each of them separately, going from one room to another to see what each one wants most and where room for compromise might exist to reach an agreement.

    The mediator may be an attorney, but many are not.  The rule defines mediation as follows: "Mediation" is an informal process in which a neutral person, called a mediator, conducts discussions among the disputing parties designed to enable them to reach a mutually acceptable agreement among themselves on all or any part of the issues in dispute."

    If the parties can come to an agreement on anything, that agreement is reduced to writing and submitted to the Court for approval, with that much of the case resolved.  The the parties can not come to agreement, they go back to dueling in the courtroom.  No one can be forced to accept any agreement in mediation, though a either side (or both sides) might be ordered by the court to take part in mediation.  Nothing said during mediation can be repeated in court -- everything said there is privileged.

    For divorce cases involving children in the state's seven largest counties the state legislature has also orders an experimental program requiring any disagreements over child custody or visitation to first be mediated.  There are certain narrow exceptions, allowing some cases to avoid mediation.  For more of mediation in child custody or child visitation cases, click here.   So far the experimental program under the 1997 law seems to be working well, and will likely be adopted for much or all of the rest of the state in years to come.  At the moment the seven counties covered are as follows: Hamilton, Davidson (Second Circuit only),  Shelby (Division III only), Knox (Division IV only), Sullivan County,  Rutherford and Cannon.

        While mediation is not free, it generally is less expensive than litigating the same issues in court in front of a judge, and even though the mediation costs can run up to $150 an hour, most people in domestic cases are eligible for a much lower fee under a sliding scale based on income and ability to pay.  The costs are not prohibitive.  Click here for the sliding scale currently in use.

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