To litigate or to mediate?

It's no surprise to any of us that estates can be minefields of disputes, upsets, and resentments. The usual way of resolving an estate dispute is to take someone to court and let the judge decide who wins and who loses. But those of you who have thought that there simply must be a better way of dealing with these disagreements are right; there is an alternative. That alternative is mediation.

Mediation is not particularly familiar to most people, since most of us have never had any reason to go through it, but there are good reasons for almost everyone caught up in an estate fight to consider mediating rather than litigating. Not all issues can be resolved this way, but if the people involved really want to settle an issue without fighting, mediation may be a good solution.

Toronto lawyer Ian Hull is a leader in the area of wills and estates law. Mr. Hull has recently posted on his blog, the Toronto Estate Law Blog, discussing the benefits of using mediation to resolve estate issues. Click here to read the article. I hope that knowing a bit more about mediation will prompt at least some of you to look into using that method of dispute resolution.