- “We believe that this is really going to help out… it’s more cost effective, it’s more timely and it’s less contentious for the parties.” – Devin Tucker, program director of the Mediation Center of Los Angeles
For more than a decade, the Vanguard has covered family court proceedings, which are often marked by extreme conflict, emotional volatility and allegations involving intimate partner violence, child abuse or neglect.
For many families, the process has proven adversarial, slow and expensive, frequently intensifying disputes rather than resolving them. Critics have long argued that the structure of family court itself—pitting one party against another from the outset—can deepen mistrust and harden positions, particularly when children are involved.
A new California law that took effect Jan. 1 seeks to change how some of those cases enter the court system. Senate Bill 1427, enacted in 2024, establishes a new pathway allowing married couples to file a joint petition for dissolution of marriage or legal separation even when they do not meet the narrow eligibility requirements for summary dissolution.
Rather than one spouse filing against the other and triggering a formal service and response process, the law allows both parties to file together, with the joint petition deemed served on both parties upon filing.
The law requires couples using the joint petition process to resolve major issues in advance, including child custody arrangements, division of property and financial matters such as support and retirement accounts. The court then reviews the agreements presented rather than adjudicating disputes piecemeal through motions, hearings and contested proceedings.
In an interview with the Vanguard, Devin Tucker, program director of the nonprofit Mediation Center of Los Angeles, said the change reflects a growing recognition that adversarial divorce proceedings often do more harm than good.
“On January 1st, the new SB 1427 bill (took effect) and it’s just allowing parties to file a joint petition instead of one party filing against the other,” Tucker said. “Although the bill is not requiring parties to go to mediation prior to filing, they want parties to have all the issues pretty much figured out to fill into the joint petition.”
Under existing practice, divorce often begins with one spouse unilaterally filing a petition, naming the other as a respondent.
That structure, Tucker said, can immediately escalate conflict.
“When things are adversarial, it creates a lot of contention,” she said. “What ends up happening is there’s a lot of delays.”
By contrast, SB 1427 shifts responsibility to couples to reach agreement before entering the court system.
“With the joint petition, basically the court is saying, ‘Hey, you tell us what you guys have come up with and we will basically make this official,’” Tucker said.
While the law does not mandate mediation, Tucker said it strongly incentivizes it by making collaboration a prerequisite for filing.
“That’s where mediation really comes into play and can be really helpful,” she said.
The Mediation Center of Los Angeles recently launched a Family Mediation Panel designed to support families navigating separation and complex family dynamics, serving both families who seek mediation on their own and those directed to mediation through the court system.
Tucker said the center has been preparing for this shift for months. Drawing on years of feedback about dysfunction in family courts, she said mediation offers families an opportunity to resolve disputes in a less adversarial, more humane setting.
“We believe that this is really going to help out,” she said, noting that the joint petition process is “more cost effective, it’s more timely and it’s less contentious for the parties.”
Cost, she said, remains one of the most significant drivers of family court conflict. Legal fees can climb rapidly when attorneys become deeply involved in contested proceedings, especially in cases involving children or allegations of abuse.
Mediation, she said, can provide families with access to professionals who have legal, mental health and financial expertise without the escalating costs of prolonged litigation. The Family Mediation Panel includes mediators with diverse professional backgrounds, allowing them to guide couples through issues that often derail divorce proceedings.
One of the most common critiques of mediation is whether it can work in high-conflict cases involving allegations of domestic violence or child abuse. Tucker said her experience suggests it can, when appropriate safeguards are in place. Drawing on her work as a mediator in dependency court, which handles cases involving serious concerns about child welfare, she said families often prefer collaborative decision-making even under court supervision.
“Even in the most difficult situations, I still see that families, they want to have the ability to come to agreements on their own,” Tucker said.
She explained that court-imposed orders frequently fail to reflect the realities of families’ work schedules, childcare needs and daily lives.
“They really prefer when they’re able to make decisions themselves in terms of parenting plans and how they’re going to split up time,” she said.
Mediation also allows space for emotional processing that the court system rarely accommodates. Tucker said family disputes are deeply personal and emotionally charged, and mediation acknowledges that reality. “It’s a very emotional process, which is also why mediation can be helpful,” she said.
She emphasized that despite the intensity of many disputes, parents often share core motivations. “At the end of the day, when there’s children involved, all parents just really want the best for their children,” Tucker said.
Tucker said her work in family mediation has reinforced the importance of dignity and privacy in family disputes. Court proceedings, she noted, can expose deeply personal family matters to public scrutiny. Mediation, by contrast, allows families to resolve conflicts through structured conversation rather than litigation.
Beyond divorce and custody cases, Tucker has spoken publicly about conflict resolution and emotional intelligence, including in a recent appearance on the Breaking Bullying podcast. There, she discussed how misunderstandings escalate, why most people do not intend harm, and how empathy and communication skills can resolve conflicts before they become destructive. She said those same principles apply to family mediation.
As California begins implementing SB 1427, data on its impact remains limited. Tucker said she is interested in how quickly courts process joint petitions and how widely the option is adopted. She noted that other jurisdictions, including Colorado and Israel, already require mediation prior to divorce filings, suggesting California’s approach may represent a step toward broader reform.
“I’m very hopeful that the new bill will shift the way that people look at family dispute resolution,” Tucker said. “How we approach it can be really defining and can just be really helpful when people are going through conflict.”
She added that affordability remains a core concern. “We want to make it affordable and accessible for people,” Tucker said, noting that high mediation costs elsewhere can recreate the same pressures that litigation imposes. Lower-cost mediation, she said, allows families to take the time they need without feeling forced into premature decisions.
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