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14 verbatim mandatory provisions from Order of Referral to Family Mediation.
First Judicial Circuit. Check the order's own effective and rescission dates before relying on it. Procedural information only; not legal advice.
Verbatim from the order's own text layer, harvested 2026-07-24; whitespace normalised only. No OCR was used. Only sentences containing mandatory language (shall, must, may not, no later than, within N) are reproduced — the full document is in custody and is the controlling text. • If Respondent or Respondent’s attorney does not agree with the mediator selected by the Petitioner, the Petitioner must contact the Mediation Services Office (850-595-4482), and a mediator will be assigned to the case. • Once the mediator is chosen or assigned, the Petitioner or Petitioner’s attorney must contact the mediator to schedule a mediation conference and provide the mediator with current mailing addressed and telephone number for both parties and any attorneys. 2. • All mediation shall be -- 1 of 3 -- Page 2 of 3 completed within 75 days of the date of this Order and prior to requesting a final hearing unless extended or waived by order of the Court, for good cause shown. 3. • Each party shall file a Family Law Financial Affidavit in the form approved by the Florida Supreme Court Forms 12.902(b) or 12.902(c) and file the original with the Court prior to scheduling the mediation session. 4. • If the parties choose one of the mediators on the attached list, pursuant to §44.108(2)(a), Florida Statues, fees for family mediation when the parties’ combined income is greater than $50,000, but less than $100,000 per year, shall be $120.00 per person per session; and pursuant to §44.108(2)(b), Florida Statutes, fees for family mediation when the parties’ combined income is less than $50,000 shall be $60.00 per person per session. 5. • Fees for mediation shall be paid to the Clerk of Court prior to scheduling the mediation session. • Any time needed above three (3) hours must be agreed upon by the parties and the mediator. • Fees for any additional mediation sessions shall be paid to the Clerk of Court prior to that session. 6. • If you are unable to make your scheduled mediation, you must notify the mediator immediately. • If you fail to cancel or reschedule at least seventy-two (72) hours prior to mediation, you will forfeit the fees you have paid for mediation and fees will need to be repaid prior to rescheduling mediation. 9. • Pursuant to §44.102(2)(c), Florida Statutes, upon the filing of a motion or request of a party, the Court shall not refer any case to mediation if it finds there has been a history of domestic violence that would compromise the mediation process. 10. • The provisions of this Order shall not apply to those cases where all issues have been agreed upon by the parties and are evidenced by an agreement or stipulation, in writing, -- 2 of 3 -- Page 3 of 3 signed by the parties and filed with the Court at the time of filing of the action or prior to the scheduled date of the first mediation session. 11. • That each party to this case shall attend the mediation session and participate earnestly to resolve all disputed family law issues. • The parties shall be prepared to spend as much time as is necessary to settle the case, unless and until an impasse is declared by the mediator.
If Respondent or Respondent’s attorney does not agree with the mediator selected by the Petitioner, the Petitioner must contact the Mediation Services Office (850-595-4482), and a mediator will be assigned to the case.
Reviewer note: Document sha256: 557846c97ed99298f87d3bdf0816b152578cbd642f0f76853e09ebdf422a8983 (74467 bytes). BenchPath harvested this circuit itself because no research corpus existed for it. Extraction is conservative: mandatory-language sentences only, so this rule is a faithful subset of the order, never a summary of it.
Judge Shull requires ALL motions set for special-set hearing to go to mediation before the hearing is held.
Judge Burkhart will not schedule a temporary-relief hearing until mediation has been held ON the temporary relief sought — mediation first, hearing second.
Judge Sharrit refers ALL cases to mediation (exceptions only by leave) and openly encourages Special Magistrates under Rule 1.490(b) to beat the hearing-time bottleneck.