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Monday, February 15, 2016

Cost of mediation vs cost of trial

In this blog, you have sometimes seen me talk about the fact that participating in mediation is cheaper than going to trial. Mediation has several other outstanding benefits, of course, but in this post I want to focus on the cost.

In 2015, Canadian Lawyer Magazine published some survey results that are very illuminating. Among them is the average cost of a trial. These numbers are the national average, meaning that trials may cost less in some parts of Canada, and cost more in others. They reflect legal fees only, and do not include court fees, accountant's fees, disbursements, tax, etc. Here are the numbers:

Cost of a 2-day trial $31,330
Cost of a 5-day trial $56,439
Cost of a 7-day trial $81,958

Yikes! $81,000 is an awful lot of money. By contrast, a 2-day mediation, which could well cover all of the same issues as a full week's trial, will cost about $5,000. And that cost is shared among all of the parties participating.

Just some food for thought for those of you who are wondering how on earth you are going to settle matters without going completely broke.

4 comments:

  1. Thanks Lynne

    Very timely info. No one including lawyers ever mentioned mediation. No one has ever mentioned the cost. It's been 10 years and I am at the Trial stage. Something is very wrong here.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I guess I'm not really surprised to hear that. I find that lawyers don't recommend mediation as often as they should. In part, this is because we as lawyers are trained as advocates to fight for our client's position. It's all partly because clients tend to come in and ask a question about how to stop someone from doing something, or how to make them do something. They rarely seem interested in sitting down and talking to the people they are mad at. However, I believe that mediation should be offered as one of the options, especially where the cost of a trial is so very high. Mediation is becoming more popular, but still has a long way to go.

      Lynne

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  2. Hi Lynne, does the estate lawyer change if you have the executrix removed? My stepmother,the executrix,refused to use mediation, said her estate lawyer told her it was expensive. So instead she is suing the estate for almost everything. Does the lawyer go if she goes?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The estate lawyer is hired by, and works for, the executor. So if that executor is removed, the replacement executor may use the same lawyer if he/she chooses or may get a new one of his/her choice. I don't understand a lawyer who thinks mediation is expensive compared to litigation, but I suspect that the advice might actually have been that mediation is an expensive waste of time unless the parties are committed to actually finding a solution.

      Lynne

      Delete

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