Divorce Mediation in Practice: Preparing for and Participating in Your Sessions

Showing up to a mediation session unprepared is one of the most common reasons the process stalls or collapses. Parties who have not organized their financial information, clarified their own priorities, or practiced articulating their needs clearly often find themselves accepting terms they later regret — or breaking down in unproductive argument. This course gives you the practical preparation and in-session skills to participate in divorce mediation with focus and effectiveness. By the end of this course you will be able to prepare a complete mediation brief covering your financial disclosure, proposed terms, and underlying interests, use interest-based negotiation techniques to move past positional deadlock, manage emotional reactivity during difficult sessions, evaluate proposed settlement language before agreeing to it, and coordinate with your consulting attorney on reviewing the resulting agreement. What you will learn: - How to build a mediation preparation brief: your positions, your underlying interests, and your best-alternative-to-negotiated-agreement (BATNA) - A pre-session financial preparation checklist aligned with what mediators typically require - Interest-based negotiation: distinguishing what you want from why you want it and how that opens creative solutions - Techniques for staying regulated during emotionally charged moments in joint sessions - How to use caucus time effectively when the mediator meets with you privately - Evaluating draft agreement language: what to look for, what questions to ask, and red flags to flag for attorney review - How to handle impasse: reframing, reality testing, and sequencing issues to break deadlock - Post-session steps: reviewing session summaries, tracking agreements reached, and preparing for the next session The course is structured as a preparation-and-participation guide divided into three phases: before the first session, during active sessions, and at the agreement stage. Each phase includes worked examples drawn from realistic mediation scenarios — parenting plan disputes, retirement account division, business valuation disagreements — showing how the frameworks play out in practice. Self-assessment exercises prompt you to complete your own preparation brief and identify your BATNA before entering the first session. Templates and checklists accompany every major step. This course is written for individuals who are scheduled for or actively engaged in divorce mediation and want structured preparation tools — no prior mediation experience is required, and it is suitable for people new to any form of structured negotiation. This course is informational in nature and does not substitute for legal advice; you should have a consulting or review attorney examine any agreement before it is finalized.