A mediated divorce may be completed within weeks of filing, if both parties cooperate. The termination of marital status (the reverting of your status from that of a married person back to single occurs at the earliest 6 months and a day after the Petition for Dissolution is served). This does not delay the processing of the Judgment in the mediation process. If the six months has not elapsed yet, we insert the future date on the Judgment face sheet and when that date arrives, you are single again. There is no need to go to court, or file anything additional.
By contrast, a litigated divorce usually takes an average of 18 months to go through the court system. Lately with court budget cutbacks and the large volume of cases each department is now expected to handle, that time frame to finalize a divorce case is getting longer all the time.