It has been said that the stress of divorce is , second only to death of a spouse. But few people know that divorce need not be quite as stressful as many experience it to be. While the process cannot be made stress-free, the pressure - not to mention the financial cost - can be kept within manageable bounds in most situations by controlling the conflict.

For employers, keeping the conflict to a manageable level means more productive employees and a better bottom line. Divorce can cause an employee to be distracted and miss work but that employee will be far more productive if he or she is missing work for settlement conferences and mediation sessions rather than court hearings. Employers can help assure the employee's early return to devoting full attention to the job by suggesting methods of reducing conflict.

Most divorce cases settle at some point before going to trial. However, many participants learn only after much heartache, stress and several thousand dollars in attorney fees that they can sit down and reach an acceptable settlement with their spouse. Divorce is more complex than many other types of legal issues because the involved parties have emotional attachments to each other, both positive and negative. When these emotional issues get intertwined with the financial and parenting issues necessary to resolve a divorce, the process becomes more complicated.

A settlement conference or mediation session can separate the emotional issues from the legal issues much more quickly than other litigation processes. Not surprisingly, when two divorcing people communicate on their own, they inevitably get into the same arguments that led to the decision to divorce. But when they have the assistance of a trained professional to keep them on task, they are more capable of reaching wise decisions regarding their financial and parenting affairs than a judge could. And talking over the issues sensibly is less expensive than taking those issues to trial.

A common misconception is that when two parties cannot agree on an issue after negotiation or argument, they should just "let the judge decide." Most people have no idea what information is needed for the judge to make a decision.

First, each attorney needs relevant information. This means collecting and reviewing documents, both from the party and from his or her spouse. Then, witnesses must be contacted and their stories heard. When a trial date approaches, each attorney must organize and present it within the allowable time. The attorney and client must spend many hours together preparing the client to testify Other witnesses must be similarly prepared.

Then, when the trial date arrives, the judge hears all of this information, or as much as can be presented within the time constraints and under the rules of evidence. The evidence inevitably presents the judge with conflicting stories about the parties. After a few short hours in the very structured setting of a trial, the judge makes the best decision possible under the circumstances. The judge's decision is almost always a compromise between the positions of the parties.

Knowing this information in advance allows both sides to save the expense and stress of preparing for trial by sitting down with their spouse and coming to the same compromise without the major hassle of a trial.

People who don't have attorneys to help them structure a settlement conference can achieve the same or better results by attending mediation Mediators are trained to assist both parties in staying on task, avoiding getting mired in the usual arguments, and structuring settlement offers to one another. Mediators also help them focus on their underlying needs and interests rather than feeling "stuck". For example, the husband may want to pay only half the financial support that the wife believes she needs. When underlying interests are explored, the husband may have a long-term interest in helping the wife achieve financial independence so his payments would stop. The wife may have a similar interest in her financial independence. When both parties look at this shared interest, many creative possibilities are revealed. One is that the husband may be willing to help finance some short-term education that will increase the wife's earning ability.

But what about the high-conflict divorce - the divorce from hell, as it is sometimes called? What if one party wants to be reasonable, but the other party takes extreme positions, is determined to exact a pound of flesh, and has no interest in settling on reasonable terms? There are no easy answers for this situation but there is hope. In many of these cases, parenting issues can be referred to a "parent coordinator". This is a person (usually a mental-health professional but sometimes an attorney) who has authority to mediate the issues and decide on issues than cannot be resolved by agreement. For many couples who have returned to court many times, a parent coordinator can save thousands of dollars and prevent months of stressful litigation. Once a parent coordinator becomes familiar with the parties, new issues may be resolved in a single meeting rather than continuing for months without resolution.

For financial issues, a solution may be binding arbitration rather than court trial. This is a less formal procedure that is usually much faster. An attorney acts as a judge and resolves the dispute by making a decision. The parties and their attorneys can tailor the procedure to the needs and issues of the case. For example, financial evidence could be presented to the arbitrator by means of summary spreadsheets rather than by testimony.

These are only a few of the many opportunities for parties to take control of their legal situations and keep the divorce process manageable. A good attorney or mediator can offer other suggestions to those who find themselves caught in divorce. The best advice may be to set aside their anger and accept that the legal system is not the place to resolve their hurt feelings. Limiting the issues to what the system is capable of resolving is the first and most important step in keeping a divorce manageable.