Navigating Legal Mediation: A Financial Perspective

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Ever received a legal threat and felt that knot in your stomach? Mediation might be the solution you never knew you needed.

Drawing from three distinct experiences with legal mediation over two decades, I pull back the curtain on what really happens when legal disputes arise and how the financial implications affect everyone involved. What started with a dishonest contractor who pocketed $2,000 without completing any work evolved into knowledge that has served me—and my clients—in unexpected ways throughout my career as a financial advisor.

The reality is that most people don't understand the actual costs and processes involved when someone threatens legal action. In Orange County, Florida, disputes under $8,000 automatically go to small claims court, often making the attorney fees more expensive than the disputed amount itself. This single piece of information has helped diffuse legal threats before they escalate.

My journey through mediation has taught me that preparation is everything. The stark contrast between walking into mediation with thorough documentation versus facing an unprepared opponent has consistently determined outcomes. When I was unexpectedly served papers regarding one of my clients, the meticulous records I maintained as their Certified Financial Planner immediately tilted the scales in our favor.

Mediation isn't just about money—sometimes the peace of mind that comes from resolution is worth every penny spent on the process. For those facing potential disputes, resources like Mediate.com and AAAMediation.org provide valuable information to help you navigate this often-misunderstood alternative to litigation.

Have you considered how documentation might protect you in a dispute? Are you prepared if someone threatens legal action? Take the first step by understanding your rights and the real costs involved before making decisions that could impact your financial future.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Real Talk with Life After Grief Chris,
where we talk about relevantissues as it relates to
individuals in grief as theynavigate finances and the
advisors who help them.
We help clients in griefnavigate financial matters.
We also teach advisors how toemotionally and financially work
with clients in grief throughan unparalleled process.

(00:24):
This week's podcast issponsored by Life After Grief
Financial Planning and LifeAfter Grief Consulting.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hello and welcome back to another episode of Real
Talk with Life After Grief,chris.
As I commonly do in some of theother episodes, I talk about
real life stuff and some thingsthat I have been through in life
, and this episode is going tobe dedicated to mediation in the
legal terms, mediation.

(00:56):
I'll repeat that againMediation, med lodged mediation
against another party threetimes maybe and I've learned a
lot through the process.
So one of the things that Ihave learned is that when

(01:17):
someone says they're going tosue you for a certain amount,
there are some very specificstipulations.
I'm going to talk about OrangeCounty Florida.
So in Orange County Florida, ifthere is a dispute and I'm
reading right off of the OrangeCounty Clerk Circuit Court
website a small claims case isfiled in county civil court to

(01:42):
settle legal disputes where thedollar amount involved is $8,000
or less, excluding cost,interest and attorney fees.
So I'm going to give you a veryspecific example of something
that happened.
I'm involved with a volunteerorganization and there was a
vendor that stated that theywere going to sue the
organization that I was involvedin.
The amount of the claimeddispute was about $4,000.

(02:07):
So I quickly gave someknowledge to the organization
that it's going to be a waste oftime for them to sue because
it's going to have to go tosmall claims.
Any attorney that's going toget involved is going to go to
small claims.
I'm not an attorney, I don'tclaim to be an attorney, but I
do know information, and thatpersuaded the other party not to

(02:29):
go the distance because it wasgoing to be a waste of money.
It probably would have costthem more money with their
attorney than the actual suitthat they claimed.
It would have just deferred togo to small claims court.
In the example that I'm going toprovide, where I lodged a small
claims issue against anotherparty, this is probably close to
20 years ago.

(02:49):
So Hurricanes, charlie, irma,gene, I was dealing with
contractors as anyone else was,and a contractor that I was
dealing with at the time, I gavehim an amount of money up front
, which was customary at thetime, and he never did any work,

(03:10):
and so I again, kind of knowinga little bit about the system,
so to speak, I wrote the checkout to him personally, and the
mistake on his part was that hecashed the check in his personal
name and which his wife was onthe account.

(03:31):
That was a big mistake.
So what I did in small claimscourt and I think it was
probably $2,000 or so, but itwas a lot of money for me 20
years ago, when I'm basicallyjust starting out I didn't make
the small claims case againstthe gentleman, I made the small
claims case against his wife andyou know you have to file the

(03:53):
paperwork with the county andthere are some fees to pay and I
had to pay some fees and thefees in Orange County.
I'm just looking on the websiteand for, let's just say it was
$2,000, it would have cost meabout $175 to file and then
basically both of the partieshave to agree to the mediation

(04:17):
and I'm going to put a line inthe sand.
This is again for cases inOrange County that are under
$8,000.
So you know you get with thecounty, they assign you know a
mediator and who is basically athird party that has no vested
interest.
Then you go and you talk andyou kind of hash it out.

(04:39):
So I was there, my wife wasthere and the contractor was
there and his wife was there.
You can probably imagine hiswife was there and the
contractor was there and hiswife was there.
You can probably imagine hiswife was very upset with him.
She basically just cut thegentleman out, the contractor,
and said, chris, what do I needto do to make this go away?
And I said I'm just looking toget my $2,000 back and you write
a contract up and both partieshave to agree by the contract.

(05:02):
There was really nothing on myend that I had to agree with,
other than accepting the termsthat they would pay me back with
the cashier's check withinseven days, and that transpired.
It happened and that has givenme some experience on in life
and kind of fast forward.
I had to lodge my wife and I hadto lodge mediation against

(05:22):
another party that did somenefarious things to us and we
went to mediation.
This one was a little bitbroader because it wasn't
necessarily based on a specificdollar amount where we paid out
a vendor and didn't get themoney back.
It was a broader case and therewere some charges and some
allegations that were of asignificant nature and the other

(05:46):
party conceded and we went tomediation and obviously I can't
disclose the things that went onin mediation, but I can say
that both parties were satisfiedwith the outcome and again, I'm
not naming the other party thatwere involved.
But there is a cost and I'mgoing to get to the point of the
financial aspect of thisbecause there is a cost.
And I'm going to get to thepoint of the financial aspect of
this because there is a cost.

(06:06):
Mediation any court wouldrather the plaintiff and the
defendant work things out first,but the cost if you're
involving an attorney areattorney fees.
That one that I just mentionedwas a significant cost to my
wife and I, but the outcome wasworth the cost.
And the outcome wasn'tnecessarily a monetary benefit.

(06:30):
There were other benefits.
Just living peacefully wasreally a benefit for us, but
again it was a monetary amountthat we had to pay.
The next mediation, you know,kind of involved me in regards
to helping out a client and I'mnot going to get too much in the

(06:51):
weeds on that one.
But there's a party that wasalso doing some nefarious things
to one of my clients and I gotserved papers in regards to
being my client's certifiedfinancial planner and you can
probably imagine that didn't goover well with me.

(07:12):
I have to keep documentationand the documentation that I
kept because this issue had beengoing on for a while between my
client and this other party,because this issue had been
going on for a while between myclient and this other party.
When I produced documentation,the other party was more than
willing to go to mediation.
That's a byproduct andsomething that I never would

(07:34):
have thought of working withclients and something that is um
, intangible, um helping themout.
But I guess that comes with theterritory of helping people out
with money and you know, kindof advising them and getting
them in contact with the rightpeople, and so, um, I was happy

(07:54):
to do that for my client and Iwas happy to see that the
documentation that I was able toproduce negated anything that
the other party was stating.
And they quickly kind ofconceded and said that we are
more than willing to go tomediation.
But again, there was a costthere.

(08:15):
Going through the legal systemis not cheap, and so I really
just wanted to touch onmediation.
I'm going to kind of readformally what mediation
specifically is from my AIfriend on Google Mediation is a
process where a neutral thirdparty, the mediator, facilitates
communication and negotiationbetween disputing parties to
help them reach a mutuallyacceptable agreement, often used

(08:38):
as an alternative to litigation, and so, like I had said before
, I kind of paraphrased, thatthe court system is going to
want you to go through mediationfirst if there's a legal
dispute, before it gets to ajudge.
I'm not sure in regards to thelegal system if they have a jury
in that realm or not.
Again, I'm not an expert, but Ihave been through mediation a

(09:00):
few times and I can speak on myexperience and my experience
alone.
I'd say it's not anintimidating process, and the
other thing that I can say isthat the things that have helped
me going through mediation werebeing hyper prepared, knowing
my facts and having alldocumentation, and I found it

(09:21):
interesting that some of thefolks that I've gone to
mediation with were not preparedat all and simply the fact of
being prepared versus not beingprepared can make a huge
difference when you're going tomediation.
So that's one of the ancillarythings I thought I would kind of
bring to the table, and it'snot something that's very common

(09:44):
, and I thought it was kind ofout of the box when I had to go
well, start preparing formediation for one of my clients
to be part of that process,which was very interesting.
So I hope you liked this episodeand I hope you learned a few
things from this too.
I'm going to give a fewresources in regards to

(10:06):
mediation and learning about theprocess, and there's all types
of mediation, so I'm just goingto give a few resources here.
Mediatecom, aaamediationorg andthese two resources gives
articles, a directory ofprofessional mediators and just

(10:27):
a lot of good information on themediation process.
Not something that you'renecessarily going to find in
regards to this podcast a lot ofinformation, but I have the
experience of at least going tomediation two or three times and
on the verge of going again.
So hope this helps you out andcheers.

(10:50):
See you on the next episode.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
Thanks for listening to our podcast.
If you are a client and arelooking to work directly with
Chris and or our firm, head onover to Life After Grief FP.
That is Life After Grief FP.
The FP is for financialplanning.
If you are an advisor lookingto emotionally and financially
work with your client in grief,or if you are a client looking

(11:16):
to get your advisor's head inthe game, head on over to
lifeaftergriefconsultingcom.
That islifeaftergriefconsultingcom.
Any related informationreferenced in this week's
podcast will be located here inthe podcast section.
Thank you.