In this conversational video, divorce coach Laura and mediator Scott Levin discuss how to set the tone and pace for couples entering a divorce. They argue that the way a divorce is initiated—often by hiring an attorney and declaring "I want a divorce"—can set an adversarial tone that escalates conflict. Instead, they advocate for an intentional, whole‑body decision‑making process where both partners align head and heart before proceeding. They explain that starting the process de‑escalated, with a focus on cooperation, makes it easier to manage inevitable rough patches. The duo highlights the advantages of mediation combined with coaching over traditional litigation: lower costs, avoidance of large retainer fees, shorter timelines (average 2‑2.5 years in Southern California versus longer, costly battles), and a high settlement rate (over 90% of cases settle voluntarily). They also discuss the emotional toll on families, especially children, noting that prolonged conflict harms both adult and minor children. Their service model bundles a set number of coaching sessions with mediation, helping couples maintain a calm tone throughout. The overall message is an invitation to reach out for guidance in deciding the best divorce process, emphasizing intentionality, cost‑effectiveness, and family well‑being.
Chapters
Hello, everybody. I think Scott did this to me on purpose because of our topic today. He said I have to do the introductions, and our topic today is on tone and pace. So this is so appropriate that he's having me introduce him. Scott, Chief Peacekeeper, mediator extraordinaire. And my name is Laura, and I am a divorce coach, and we work together a lot. And when we get chit-chatting after we have clients, we come up with these, oh, Oh my gosh, we need to talk about this with you. And today we want to talk about how to set tone and pace in a divorce. And as we were talking before we started to record, this literally starts from the very beginning. So I was telling Scott— and hello, Scott, welcome.
Hi, how are you? You're doing a great job.
I'm so good. I'm so good.
I didn't want to do it. You're doing incredibly well.
Hey, thanks. Tone and pace. And I was telling Scott before we started recording that I know couples who say you can't say the word divorce unless you really mean it. So there's rules in relationships that people come up with or agreements, and that's how you know when things are sometimes going sideways. So what we see is people going out and hiring an attorney And then all of a sudden they come home and they say, well, I've hired an attorney, I want a divorce. And that immediately sets a tone for the rest of the process. And what Scott and I wish for the world is that we back that up and you either find somebody like me or me, and we learn how to have conversations about how to broach the topic with somebody, how to decide if you want to get a divorce. If you decide you want to get a divorce, how, what that's going to look like and how we get you into Scott's office to not end up with $20,000 worth of retainer fees paid immediately, but end up with somebody like Scott, preferably Scott, because he is the chief peacekeeper. And I mean, what that looks like. So interject anytime here, because if you turn the mic over to me, I'm just going to keep talking, you know.
No, I mean, I think you're doing a great job. I did. I just, what you said just reminds me of a client that, um, we, we signed their final divorce papers yesterday in the office, and they were mentioning that they had gone to a counseling session, uh, came back from it, looked at each other. One of them said, I just can't be married to you anymore. The other person agreed. And then they found me, you know, right then and there. They were looking for someone to make, you know, help them move forward. Um, so You know, even in that situation, they had done— they had proceeded with intention, but they had also stayed aligned in their goals of moving forward in a way that, you know, respected their time together and honored the marriage and their children, which they share. So, you know, what you're talking about, like making a plan, broaching the subject, this is acting with intention and using, you know, this in addition to the heart. All important things.
Absolutely. And I know when I coach, and that's a really great point, like when I coach, I always say it's, it's a whole body thing, right? Like your, your head and your heart need to be aligned. You need to absolutely just have it all go through your whole body, make a whole body decision, not just like a gut reaction or like your brain goes off in one direction. It's also, I would say, something really important that we both see is It's very hard to de-escalate a situation. So if you start super escalated, bringing it down is so much harder than starting amicable. And it's gonna escalate a little bit. There's gonna be rough patches. There's gonna be times that you and I are working people through decisions that are hard. Mediation means compromise. It doesn't mean you're gonna go in and win the whole thing. However, if we just start de-escalated and let it just kind of creep up and just flow a little bit through the process, I think that's one of the things that we do really successfully with people is pace that process, honor when it does get sticky, but start it down here.
Because if you're up here, I think you're being so smart right now. So one of the things that we— how one of the ways that we work together is that When people sign on to mediate with my— with me, they actually get, you know, a certain number of sessions with Laura as well. So she's acting as a coach. And when you start down here, she can help you stay down here. And people often say, hey, your job's so easy. Everyone just comes in with it all figured out. It's so amicable. Miss Chief Peacekeeper. I'm like, no, that's not how— I mean, sure, that can happen, but like, my clients are not kumbaya. They're not loving to be in this situation oftentimes, and they're not loving to speak with each other all the time, you know, about especially about things that we work on in divorce. But if you can start down here, then Laura can work with you to stay down here. And as it creeps up, as things get scary or confusing or You know, you, you can, you can maintain it so that you get through the process, you know, in the right way. One thing that could start off wrong when you do the $20,000 in retainers to the litigators— I have clients all the time. In fact, one right now where, you know, mom hired a lawyer, served the divorce papers on dad, and those divorce papers said that mom gets 100% custody. And that there's been mental abuse and emotional abuse. And when Dad got it, they were— they're still living in the same house. And he said, what's going on with this? What is this? Is this— this is what you want? You want to take custody? And you know I'm a great dad. And she goes, I had no idea. That's not what I signed up for. But Dad's now up here. He goes, what's he gonna fight for? My kids? You're gonna take my kids away from me? So like, that's part of the game of litigation. You get people fired up here so that as they get the year and a half in and not a lot's happened and they're starting to de-escalate, hopefully, because not a lot's happened, but they're just spending money that they never get low enough to say, hey, let's just figure this out together.
I always think that as a war of attrition. If you are spending a whole year, this whole life cycle of like, you started here, you escalated up, and now you're so freaking tired and exhausted and spent so much money that you're like— and I, I often wonder, and this is a conversation that you and I have had before too, um, if I could give people a piece of paper at the start knowing kind of like almost like a Matrix time warp thing where I'm like, okay, write down what you would settle for today and then look at where after they've fought for a year.
Absolutely.
How close they end up. And I'm like, it's probably pretty close and you haven't given up a year of your life. And there's, there's reasons why that route is maybe appropriate for people. However, one huge point that I want to bring up today is you're going to end up with a mediator anyway.
Yep.
You may have representation on both sides. You will end up with a mediator. And I don't know what the statistics are like nationally. I think state by state they're a little bit different, but often, like, well over 90% of the cases are settled voluntarily, the litigated cases. So why not start in that spot?
Before you've spent any years, not— it's 2 and a half years in Southern California, the average case. So, you know, there's outliers out there that bring that up a little, but there's also lots of cases that settle, you know, right away that— so I mean, it's 2, it's 2 years and it's thousands of dollars and it's— but it's also like the weight of that. Like you literally You know, you'll feel it after all that time being in that contentious atmosphere. It's not somewhere you want to be.
And your family feels it. Like, your kids feel it. Like, not only you as somebody who's going through a divorce, but if you have children— and I will say, in my experience, adult children impacted deeply by divorce. Like, I have 33-year-old children of people going through a divorce that have reached out to me just You know, what's like, how, how do I cope with this? What do I— and, or they're stopping talking to one or the other parent. And I'm like, 30 years old, like, how are you not just figuring out that your parents didn't want to be together? But there's a lot of impact, a lot of, like you said, Scott, weight that we just would prefer that you don't have to experience. So the more Yeah. we can give it, the more insight and the more thinking with your heart and your mind and with your family in perspective, I think our invitation to you would be reach out to us. And if you need help deciding what you want to do, what process you want this to look like, what you— what your goals would be, let us help you.
I love everything you said. And that's why, like I said, when you mediate with me, you get a certain number of sessions with, you know, that help you make those intentional statements. So you have the mediation and you have the coaching, and it really is a powerful combination. And thank you for doing the introduction and for being here with us.
