Mediation

On Oahu, there are too few judges and support staff to handle the volume of family law cases that are filed. The court’s answer is to order litigants to mediation.
The judges say if you have to pay, you will settle—note this is on top of the money you have already paid your attorney.
Once your attorney files for divorce, and the other person files an answer, it may be a good idea to consider trying mediation before any other pleadings are filed in court. But if a lawyer files some sort of motion in court, it is very possible the judge will not make any decision but tell everyone to go to mediation.
So, then what? Mediation Center of the Pacific has a great team of mediators, and their fees are low based on income. But they are not always the best option in many cases. Both attorneys would then decide which retired judge or other attorney (active or retired) is likely to be the most effective for a particular case. The ideal mediator is one that engenders trust in each litigant that their viewpoint is understood and appreciated. The mediator ideally looks to find any areas of agreement, however small, that hopefully will lead to compromise on larger areas of disagreement. Mediators request from $2500 to $5000 retainer, usually split 50/50 and bill against it at ~$200-250/hr. That can disappear awfully fast as every meeting, phone call and email is usually noted, just like an attorney’s bill.
Your lawyer can still file motions and pleadings in court, so you could be running parallel activities which, again, can run up the bill. Mediators cannot order either side to do anything, like a judge can. If you aren’t getting anywhere with the mediator, the mediator would have to declare an “impasse” and you’d be back before a judge, who may not be too happy to see you.