Schlesinger & Strauss, LLC

During mediation, you may be able to reach an agreement regarding your divorce, child custody or other family legal issue. The mediator memorializes this agreement in writing. Depending on the type of case you are mediating, it may be necessary to present the agreement to the judge in or out of court to be incorporated as part of the court order. If you were unable to reach an agreement in mediation, you would need to go to court to seek the legal relief you are requesting.

Mediation is a voluntary process. If you participate in good faith and are unable to reach an agreement, you can still continue in the contested case. However, many parties are able to reach an amicable agreement during mediation that provides better alternatives to what a court may have ordered.

The mediator may divide you and your spouse in different rooms so that you have no direct interaction during the process. During these private meetings, the mediator can discuss the weaknesses of each party’s position and discuss the possible negative consequences of not reaching an agreement. This may encourage your spouse to make more rational decisions that are in his or her own best interest. If you are unable to reach an agreement in mediation, you simply continue with a contested divorce.

No, it is not. In fact, your attorney can participate in mediation with you and advise you of your legal rights for each option that is presented during mediation. Mediation can be commenced at any stage in the process, including before a case has been filed, after the answer is provided, before discovery is conducted or on the eve of trial. Court encourages mediation as a way to amicably resolve disputes.

Family mediation is a private and confidential process. Nothing you say in this forum can later be repeated to the court. It is often much less expensive to resolve family legal issues through mediation since it avoids the expensive litigation process. Also, parties are often able to come up with creative solutions to their legal issues and develop an agreement that is customized to their unique needs.

Illinois law does not require you to stay married to someone you do not want to be married to. After you file your divorce petition, your spouse has a limited amount of time to provide a formal answer. If your spouse fails to provide an answer, you can seek a default judgment. If your spouse does provide an answer, you can still proceed with the divorce and your spouse will be involved in the process.

While both a divorce and legal separation proceeding can make orders regarding the division of marital property, child custody, visitation, child support and maintenance, these are two distinct proceedings. In a legal separation, the parties are not technically divorced. They cannot remarry someone else. In a divorce, the marital relationship is terminated and the parties are free to remarry.

Retirement funds and 401(k) plans are generally divisible as marital property during a divorce. The value of the fund that was accrued before the marriage is generally separate property. The retirement fund completes complex calculations to determine the marital and separate property of the fund. This determines when contributions were made and the value of the property in the fund. However, some types of retirement funds may not be divisible, such as railroad employee retirement funds.

A marital settlement agreement is a contract between the spouses regarding the material issues involved in their divorce, including the division of marital property, child custody, visitation, child support and maintenance. Once the spouses have signed the agreement, they submit it to the court to approve and incorporate as part of the divorce decree.

For child support orders entered after July 1, 2017, Illinois courts apply the income shares model to calculate child support. This formula considers the income of both parents. The court uses the economic tables to determine the appropriate amount of child support and then apportions this support between the parents in proportion to their income. For example, if the child support amount is $1,000 and the mother earns $40,000 and the father earns $60,000, the father would be responsible for $600 of this support.

Illinois courts consider a variety of factors when awarding maintenance, including your realistic present and future earning capacity and any impairment of this earning capacity. Therefore, if you recently suffered an injury that affects your ability to earn a living or financial circumstances have changed, the court can consider these factors.

Spouses do not have to have a long court battle to get divorced. They may be able to reach the terms of their divorce by talking to each other about it, negotiating through their attorneys or going through mediation. If the parties are able to reach an agreement regarding the material issues involved in their divorce like allocation of parenting time and responsibility, division of property and child support, they can enter into a marital settlement agreement and then ask the court to approve their agreement.

Illinois is an equitable distribution state, meaning that if the parties cannot reach an agreement about how to divide their property in a divorce, the court will divide it based on what it considers equitable. The court can consider particular circumstances and factors, such as the spouses’ age, health, education levels, and earning capacity, the length of the marriage, any separate property of the parties, the contributions each spouse made to the marriage, and whether any spouse intentionally wasted the marital property.