Can you mediate a divorce case where there are serious power imbalances between the couple?

I can. I’ve taken a lot of domestic violence and psychological training to try to get more understanding of where people come from. If people have great power imbalances, you may have to put them in two different rooms to be able to do that. That’s called shuttle mediation. Or it may be that you cannot mediate it. It just depends again on the facts. If someone is very volatile and they’re going to be screaming and yelling the whole time, and I as a mediator can’t control that, I’m not going to do it because it’s too stressful on everybody.

With 30 years of experience in family law, Laura M. Urbik Kern is a certified mediator and family lawyer who concentrates on dissolution, family and juvenile law, child support, and complex domestic relations cases.