There is no shortage of benefits to spouses willingly attending mediation to resolve issues, rather than litigating everything in court. About 90% of divorces are resolved through mediation without ever having to go to trial. Mediation enables spouses to ultimately retain final approval over the terms of their divorce, including parenting plans, property division, and awards of support. However, if they decide to instead attend court, that control is removed from the parties and instead placed in the hands of the Judge, who then has sole and final discretion as to how the divorce is resolved. Mediation is a private, less costly, and oftentimes less contentious way by which a divorce can be resolved by the spouses coming and working together, rather than battling it out in the courtroom. There are varying structures of how a mediation is conducted, depending on the wishes of the parties. For example, a common mediation technique involves a neutral, third party mediator splitting up the parties and their attorneys into separate rooms, acting as an intermediary between them and traveling back and forth. This way, spouses can complete settlement negotiations without even having to be in the same room as the other.