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Mediating and arbitrating family law disputes is, among other things, emotionally challenging for parties and their attorneys. Although the break up of families as a result of divorce is common, the frequency of divorce is of no consolation to the family members involved. Family members quarreling over a deceased relative's estate are usually just as emotional and bitter as parties enmeshed in divorce.

Mediating family and estate law cases are very helpful because they each have high emotional content. They always involve dysfunction among and between family members. Divorce cases or family law cases often involve painful child custody issues.

Estate disputes often involve festering relationships among siblings and other relatives that have developed over decades, and it is a good idea to try to resolve these cases prior to trial, because a trial result is only likely to add to the dysfunction.

Family law and estate law disputes have more in common than they are different. Each involves one or more disputes among individuals, rather than individuals vs institutions. What that means, too, is that individuals, or in the case of estates, they have to finance these disputes, and the cost of litigation in each kind of case, whether it's a divorce or an estate dispute, tends to shrink the assets of a marital community on the one hand, and an estate on the other.

Mediation is arguably of greatest service in facilitating settlement of family law (divorce) and estate disputes. Mediation rather than trial or arbitration has the capacity to allow disputing family members to chart a course toward a level of acceptance and even reconciliation that neither trial nor arbitration can typically achieve.

In addition to having professionally mediated thousands of cases in which parties emotions have run unchecked, I have personally experienced the family fracture of divorce and the contest of an estate dispute. These experiences have informed my approach to mediation and arbitration of family and estate disputes in particular.

Early mediation should be seriously considered in the vast majority of family law or divorce cases. This is especially true if child custody issues are involved. If parents are encouraged by counsel to first focus upon their children's welfare via an early mediation, not only is such an effort likely to benefit the children themselves, it is also likely to reduce the parents' stress level at least to an extent. If custody issues are at least temporarily resolved via early divorce mediation, the focus then can turn to compromising financial and other property issues recognizing that analyzing these often does require some time.

Obviously, merely suggesting the above is easier said than done. Attorneys do not always encourage divorcing parties to try to settle early. However, because so many divorces involve incendiary emotions from the outset, it often doesn't take much to further inflame a party. I have seen marital communities financially ruined and families
irreparably and unnecessarily harmed because of a failure or refusal to try and settle early.

In addition, mediation and arbitration offer divorcing parties a confidentiality that a civil court action does not. A court may seal some aspect of a divorce file but there are certainly no guarantees. It is seldom in any divorcing party's best interest to air the intimate details of his or her domestic life in public.

Much of the same considerations apply equally to estate disputes with the exception of custody issues. I truly believe that mediation and arbitration have the capacity to do the most good in disputes between family members. However, it is very hard work and requires tireless dedication on the part of the neutral.

If you are dealing with a family law dispute, divorce case or estate law that would derive benefit from a professional, experienced and non-biased mediator, give us a call today to discuss the particulars of your case.

Bertram Dispute Resolution, Inc.
316 Occidental Avenue South, Suite 500
Seattle, WA 98104
(206) 624-3388

Qualifications of Gregg Bertram:

2000 to 2008 Gregg was a principal at JAMS, the nationwide provider of alternative dispute resolution services, and before that was affiliated with Washington Arbitration and Mediation Services, where he earned the "Master Mediator" designation.

Gregg is a board member of the Federal Bar Association Alternative Dispute Resolution Section, and is an American Arbitration Association mediator and Arbitrator. He is also an accredited neutral of the World Intellectual Property Organization and International Center of Dispute Resolution.

Gregg is past chair of the ADR committee of the Washington State Bar Association. He has been recognized as a "Super Lawyer"® for ten consecutive years in Washington Law & Politics magazine, and has received repeated recognition in Seattle Magazine peer surveys as a "Top Lawyer."