The courts have some test programs running where they refer cases to mediation. Parties are screened for some known red flags but pretty much if your case is sent to mediation, you have to attend, well first session at least.*
Some of these cases are rough! We have to undo 2-3 years of damage in their ability to trust each other, eroded from the litigation process, before we can even begin to have productive discussions about moving forward. That damage crops up again and again and has to be scraped away each time.
These couples aren't necessarily high conflict by personality, psychology or history, it’s the damage that's been done by being in litigation and all the time operating out of defensiveness and fear, with their normal communication blocked, sometimes at their lawyers’ instruction.
*The mediators donate 90 minutes of time, free, and then, if the parties so choose, they can continue at the mediator’s hourly rate.
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