MEDIATION SAVES THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS AND MONTHS OF DELAY
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By
Chinn & Associates
For 33 years I have watched the ridiculous course the typical divorce follows. Each side hires an attorney. Minimum initial investment: $1,500 for each for the cheapest of lawyers. Then the lawyers start writing each other letters, which neither pays attention to, but charges the clients for. Then the lawyers file suit. There is a responsive suit. Then there is discovery: interrogatories, requests for documents going back thirty years, subpoenas, depositions, motions, lawyer fighting, all of which is billed to the client by the hour. Then, there are usually meaningless settlement negotiations, where each lawyer sends letters which are little more than posturing and pandering to their own client’s base emotions of resentment, anger and revenge. Then there is trial preparation. Finally, a year later, the trial date, whereupon the judge calls the lawyers into his office and encourages settlement. The lawyers then go out into the hallway and work with their clients under the pressure of the trial setting and settle the case. This tragedy plays itself out all over the country every day. A better way exists. It’s mediation. It can accomplish settlement of cases in relatively short amounts of time and for a fraction of the cost. See this very effective article on the tragedy taking place in the American Court system.
