The majority of the families studies were seen by male-female mediation teams. The first mediation interview consists of an overview of rationales and procedures, the signing of a contract to mediate, parents' identification of issues to be resolved in mediation, the mediator's summarizing of areas of agreement and disagreement and an individual caucus with each parent, and the reframing of the dispute as a relationship problem. The second and subsequent mediation sessions are much less structured and more individualized. They followed the four-step problemsolving model of identifying, brainstorming, evaluating, and implementing. The CMP was evaluated by randomly assigning families to mediation or adversary settlement and then interviewing the parents about their satisfaction with the process. Consistent and statistically significant differences were reported between the mediation and litigation groups, with most differences favoring mediation. 1 figure, 26 references.