Season to Divorce and Mediation

 

Yesterday as I went to check my email, I noticed that on my Comcast homepage "divorce attorneys" was again trending. I started to wonder whether there is a season to divorce. Do many unhappy people in the same week for some reason decide to explore options to end their marriage? I've noticed the trending before and it also reflects itself in calls to our office for mediation. Despite having seen bunching in calls for the over 20 years I've been mediating, I've never been able to identify a consistent pattern. It used to be that on January 2, calls would come in from people who didn't want to disrupt family holidays by calling in November, but in the past few years, I've noticed more calls in March than January. Another bunching occurs in the summer. Is it because children are off to camp and parents can focus on themselves?

 Another question I asked myself when I saw "divorce attorneys" trending was how was this even possible given the huge percentage of people representing themselves in divorce cases. In an article in an American Bar Association journal, the author stated that judges in Arizona in 2005 estimated that over 80% of cases involved one self-represented party. This same trend is occurring all over the country.

 Most of the couples I work with in mediation are self-represented so, with the trend toward self-representation, I wonder how soon it will be before "mediation" is trending

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