Mediation or trial: how a Teton County divorce actually ends.
Most Jackson divorces end at a table, not in a courtroom. In Teton County the district judge requires mediation if either party asks for it, so the question is rarely whether you will mediate but when, with whom, and how ready you will be. I have tried more than seventy cases to the bench and settled many more, and the two skills are the same skill: knowing what the judge would do, and knowing it before she does.
Call or text me. Clients get my cell number from day one, and I answer. Just been served? Here's what happens next.
Three things to know before anyone picks a date.
Wyoming has no statute compelling divorce mediation, but in Teton County the district judge requires it whenever either spouse asks. The request usually comes at the scheduling conference, and the scheduling order sets a deadline for it. A spouse who does not want to mediate still has to show up.
Mediation communications are confidential under Wyoming's Dispute Resolution Act (W.S. § 1-43-102), and each spouse holds a privilege to keep them out of court (W.S. § 1-43-103). The judge learns one thing: settled, partly settled, or not. Offers made at mediation cannot be read back to her at trial.
A Wyoming divorce is tried to the court, not a jury. In Teton County that court is the one district judge who entered your temporary orders and will write the decree. A trial is the right answer in some cases. It is never a way to get a second opinion.
What a Jackson mediation day looks like.
The room, the rooms, and the mediator
A divorce mediation in Jackson is a day, sometimes a half day, in a conference room or on video, with each spouse and their lawyer in a separate room and the mediator moving between them. Some mediators open with everyone together; most do not. The mediator carries proposals back and forth, tests each side's view of what the judge would do, and keeps the day moving. By mid-afternoon the gap is usually about one or two things, and that is when settlements happen.
The mediators who handle Teton County cases are, in general terms, retired judges from elsewhere in Wyoming, family-law lawyers in Jackson and around the state who mediate part of the week, and a few full-time neutrals, several working by video from Cheyenne, Casper, or out of state. A financial dispute wants a mediator who can read a balance sheet; a custody dispute wants one who will talk to both parents about the children. I also serve as a mediator myself, for couples who come to me jointly and for cases where both sides already have counsel; that work is described on the divorce mediation page, and I never mediate a case in which I represent one spouse.
Preparation is most of the day's value. Before mediation my office has the Rule 26 disclosures in hand, the property schedule built, the child support run under both parents' proposed schedules, a draft parenting plan, and a written statement for the mediator. The spouse who arrives with the spreadsheet sets the terms of the conversation. The post on mediation, arbitration, or a private judge compares the other ways out of the courtroom.
- 01Answer filed; the court sets the scheduling conference on its own motion, run by phone by the judicial assistant; counsel must know whether Rule 26 disclosures are complete
- 02Scheduling order: discovery cutoff, expert deadlines, a mediation deadline if either party requested it, and a pretrial conference date
- 03Disclosures and discovery: the property schedule, the Confidential Financial Affidavit, appraisals, depositions where the money is unclear (see hidden assets)
- 04Mediation, usually three to six months in, after the numbers exist and before the trial costs start
- 05Settled: a signed agreement, a stipulated decree, and the judge's signature, with the court notified at once and an estimated date for the papers
- 06Not settled: a guardian ad litem if custody is contested, the pretrial conference where the trial is set, exhibits and witness lists exchanged
- 07Trial to the bench, a written decision, and a decree the losing side has thirty days to appeal
Teton County scheduling practice as of 2026; the scheduling order in your case controls the dates. A case close to settling can have its scheduling conference reset thirty to forty-five days.
Two ways the case ends.
- Settlement. The agreement reached at mediation is written up the same day or within a week, signed by both spouses, and submitted with a stipulated decree. Once the judge signs, the terms are the court's orders, enforceable by contempt like anything else in a decree (enforcement). Property terms are then final; custody, child support, and alimony remain open to later modification on a material change, as they would be after a trial. The step-by-step page shows where settlement fits.
- Trial. One district judge hears the evidence over one or several days, without a jury, and decides every open issue: property "as appears just and equitable" (W.S. § 20-2-114), custody by the children's best interests (W.S. § 20-2-201), support from the presumptive table (W.S. § 20-2-304). She writes the decree. Neither spouse chooses the terms, and both pay for the process. The right trial is the one where the other side's position is simply wrong on the law or the facts.
When trial is the right answer, and the rest.
Cases that should be tried, settlement conferences, preparing a client for the table, the Teton County courtroom
The cases that should be tried
Some cases should not settle, and saying so is part of the job. A spouse who has hidden money settles only when the hiding stops, and a mediator cannot subpoena a bank; discovery and, if necessary, a trial pull the money into the open, and the court can weigh that conduct in how it divides the property (hidden assets). A custody case where one parent is unsafe for the children is not a case for splitting the difference; it is a case for the guardian ad litem the court requires and a hearing. A spouse whose demand rests on a reading of Wyoming law that is simply wrong, that an inheritance is untouchable, that alimony comes by formula, that the house goes to whoever is on the deed, sometimes has to hear it from the judge.
What trial is not for is punishment, vindication, or being heard. The judge decides property, children, and support on the statutes and the evidence, and a trial that is really about the marriage ends with a decree that looks like the settlement that was on the table in month four, at several times the cost.
Settlement conferences
A settlement conference is a cousin of mediation. In some Wyoming courts it is run by a judge other than the one who will try the case, so the trial judge never hears the offers. In Teton County, with one district judge, that neutral is nearly always a private mediator, and the two terms are used loosely. Counsel can also simply negotiate, exchanging written proposals over weeks, and many Jackson cases settle that way without a formal session. The court's mediation requirement is satisfied by the attempt, not the method, so long as its order is followed.
Preparing a client for the table
Three things decide how a client does at mediation. The first is the numbers: a property schedule with values both sides can defend, the child support under each proposed parenting schedule, and an after-tax view of what each proposal leaves each spouse with. The second is a realistic range, worked out in advance, of what the judge would likely do on each issue. The third is a list, written before the day, of what the client needs and what the client would like, because by four in the afternoon those two lists blur. A spouse who has spent years with a controlling partner needs more preparation, not less, and a lawyer in the room who will say no on their behalf.
The agreement signed at the end of the day is a contract and a future court order, read as written with nothing added. The house terms must say who refinances by when and what happens if they cannot (keeping the house); the retirement terms must name the plans and the method (retirement and QDROs); the parenting plan must be in well defined terms (parenting schedules). A term sheet that leaves those to "be worked out" is the beginning of the next dispute.
In Teton County
The district judge requires mediation if either party requests it, and in a contested custody case she requires a guardian ad litem before any hearing or trial, which is itself a reason many parents settle the parenting plan first. Trials are set at the pretrial conference, and when a case settles her staff should be told immediately, with an estimated date for the decree papers, which are filed through the Clerk of District Court rather than sent by email. Court sits in the temporary courtrooms at 250 E. Simpson Ave. until the new Justice Center opens in 2028; the courthouse page has the details.
What people ask about mediation and trial.
Is mediation required in a Wyoming divorce?
What does mediation cost compared with a trial?
Is what I say in mediation confidential?
Does the judge find out what happened in mediation?
Can I mediate if there has been domestic violence?
What happens if we settle some issues but not all?
Tool · two minutesWyoming child support calculatorThe statute's table, gross to net, shared custody. Run it before anyone quotes you a number.
Run the calculator →
Start with a confidential conversation with Aaron Herzberg.
A consultation is a scheduled working session, in person in Jackson or by video, in which we go through your situation and I tell you what I would do. It is a paid working session, not a sales pitch. The fee is quoted when we schedule. Your note reaches me directly, my office runs the conflicts check and puts the meeting on my calendar, and you can call or text any time.
40 E Simpson Ave, Jackson, WY 83001 · by appointment · video consultations for out-of-state clients · info@puzzlegroup.com