"Litigation will give me everything I want."

Often time, people engage in the mediation process, believing that they can use the process as a method for pressuring their partner into acquiescing to their wishes. As part of this thought process, one or both people mistakenly believe that if the other of them does not agree, they can resort to the court process to get their desires met. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The court process is as susceptible to subjectivity as any other process. There is no objective "truth" to be found. What many clients do not understand, and what their lawyers often unwittingly fail to tell them, is that courts do not follow identical paths. Judges are provided guidelines, and it is up to them how to apply those guidelines to each situation, person, couple, and family. By way of illustration, many clients believe that if property was purchased or acquired prior to the marriage, that property is deemed nonmarital and exclusive of the court process. Only a portion of this belief is true. Property purchased prior to the marriage usually is categorized as nonmarital. However, the guidelines that courts follow allow them to consider the nonmarital assets of one spouse in determining a fair allocation of marital property to the other spouse.