In her book titled The Good Karma Divorce, Judge Michele Lowrance, a domestic relations judge in the Circuit Court of Illinois, wrote the following:

The couples I see in my courtroom are desperately searching for emotional release; they smuggle their pain into their testimony, even when it is not relevant to the topic. They do so at every opportunity, hoping that somehow the court will know how to lessen their agony. In the end their desperate emotions remain unattended and unsatisfied... The court system was not built to house these emotions, and attorneys are not trained to reduce this kind of suffering. Divorcing people expect relief far beyond what the legal realm can provide from their attorneys and the courts, and they often end up feeling like members of a powerless, unprotected class....

In my personal life, when divorced people discover I am a member of the judicial system, they are exploding to tell me how the system has failed them... They expect emotional injustice to be righted by legal justice... The unfortunate fallacy in believing that emotional injustice can be righted by the legal justice system creates anger and feelings of being cheated... Years after the divorce both groups of people understandably still have enduring bitterness and quiet, brooding grudges.

...My point is not to criticize litigation or the court process, which serves an essential role in resolving legal disputes. The crucial question is whether or not litigation or the court process is essential or even necessary for any given legal dispute. I have never meant to indicate that "evaluative mediation" has no value. The fact that I am distinguishing it from what I refer to as "true mediation" does not mean that I don't believe it serves a purpose. If "evaluative mediation" is able to help parties to resolve their dispute in a more expeditious manner and at a lower overall cost, it certainly has value.

Read the full article at the Huffington Post [HERE]