Divorce and its aftermath–Canadian Style!

Years ago I took a mediation course at the National Judicial College. Halfway through the course, someone asked the instructor about the mundane aspects of building up a mediation practice. By way of answering the question, the instructor told us about a former student of hers who asked her the same question a few years ago. She said that she told her student to go around to other mediators and ask for referrals involving post divorce issues, i.e., disputes about child custody, child support and alimony.  The instructor said these disputes tended to be bitter and nasty and most mediators would prefer to farm these out if they had other sources of business. Anyone who practices law–whether they ever do divorces or not– knows that post divorce issues can be most aggravating.

Our instructor said that six months later the student called her and said that the advice that the instructor had given the student  had been invaluable and that the new mediator  was booked solid for the next three months. When the instructor asked what the problem was, the former student wanted to know how she could manage to get some time off without losing business. The instructor advised her to raise her rates.

The student managed to raise her rates twice in a year before she finally had to steel herself to only do mediations four days a week. The demand was incredible, because everyone involved was really bitter and nasty. She understood why there was a small supply of available mediators relative to the demand.

Our instructor said that eventually the mediator started to develop a commercial practice and hired someone to handle her post divorce cases. Our instructor said that after a few years, the junior mediators all started to burn out and either left or started to look for non post divorce cases.

A friend sent me this link today. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080618/wl_canada_afp/canadachildcourtoffbeat_080618180800   It seemed like another Internet hoax to me, until I was able to verify it on several other web sites that relied on different wire services.

Why was a court getting involved in a parental decision to ground a twelve year old?  It wasn’t until I discovered that the girl’s parents were divorced and her mother had primary custody that the pieces of the puzzle all fell rapidly into place. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,369044,00.html    http://www.progressivebloggers.ca/blog/related.php?type=affiliate&id=177874  http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/n19454701-court-girl/

Reading between the lines, I discovered that this was really just a post divorce case in which the mother was using her daughter’s grounding to attack her ex-husband.  Divorce creates problems for everyone involved–as well as  for society–for a very long time.