Real Talk with Life After Grief Chris
Real Talk with Life After Grief Chris
Navigating Legal Mediation: A Financial Perspective
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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Welcome to Real Talk with Life After Grief Chris, where we talk about relevant issues as it relates to individuals in grief as they navigate finances and the advisors who help them. We help clients in grief navigate financial matters. We also teach advisors how to emotionally and financially work with clients in grief through an unparalleled process. This week's podcast is sponsored by Life After Grief Financial Planning and Life After Grief Consulting.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome back to another episode of Real Talk with Life After Grief, chris. As I commonly do in some of the other episodes, I talk about real life stuff and some things that I have been through in life, and this episode is going to be dedicated to mediation in the legal terms, mediation. I'll repeat that again Mediation, med lodged mediation against another party three times maybe and I've learned a lot through the process. So one of the things that I have learned is that when someone says they're going to sue you for a certain amount, there are some very specific stipulations. I'm going to talk about Orange County Florida. So in Orange County Florida, if there is a dispute and I'm reading right off of the Orange County Clerk Circuit Court website a small claims case is filed in county civil court to settle legal disputes where the dollar amount involved is $8,000 or less, excluding cost, interest and attorney fees. So I'm going to give you a very specific example of something that happened. I'm involved with a volunteer organization and there was a vendor that stated that they were going to sue the organization that I was involved in. The amount of the claimed dispute was about $4,000. So I quickly gave some knowledge to the organization that it's going to be a waste of time for them to sue because it's going to have to go to small claims. Any attorney that's going to get involved is going to go to small claims. I'm not an attorney, I don't claim to be an attorney, but I do know information, and that persuaded the other party not to go the distance because it was going to be a waste of money. It probably would have cost them more money with their attorney than the actual suit that they claimed. It would have just deferred to go to small claims court.
Speaker 2:In the example that I'm going to provide, where I lodged a small claims issue against another party, this is probably close to 20 years ago. 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 gave him an amount of money up front, which was customary at the time, and he never did any work, and so I again, kind of knowing a little bit about the system, so to speak, I wrote the check out to him personally, and the mistake on his part was that he cashed the check in his personal name and which his wife was on the account. That was a big mistake. So what I did in small claims court and I think it was probably $2,000 or so, but it was a lot of money for me 20 years ago, when I'm basically just starting out I didn't make the small claims case against the gentleman, I made the small claims case against his wife and you know you have to file the paperwork with the county and there are some fees to pay and I had to pay some fees and the fees in Orange County. I'm just looking on the website and for, let's just say it was $2,000, it would have cost me about $175 to file and then basically both of the parties have to agree to the mediation and I'm going to put a line in the sand. This is again for cases in Orange County that are under $8,000. So you know you get with the county, they assign you know a mediator and who is basically a third party that has no vested interest. Then you go and you talk and you kind of hash it out.
Speaker 2:So I was there, my wife was there and the contractor was there and his wife was there. You can probably imagine his wife was there and the contractor was there and his wife was there. You can probably imagine his wife was very upset with him. She basically just cut the gentleman out, the contractor, and said, chris, what do I need to do to make this go away? And I said I'm just looking to get my $2,000 back and you write a contract up and both parties have to agree by the contract. There was really nothing on my end that I had to agree with, other than accepting the terms that they would pay me back with the cashier's check within seven days, and that transpired. It happened and that has given me some experience on in life and kind of fast forward.
Speaker 2:I had to lodge my wife and I had to lodge mediation against another party that did some nefarious things to us and we went to mediation. This one was a little bit broader because it wasn't necessarily based on a specific dollar amount where we paid out a vendor and didn't get the money back. It was a broader case and there were some charges and some allegations that were of a significant nature and the other party conceded and we went to mediation and obviously I can't disclose the things that went on in mediation, but I can say that both parties were satisfied with the outcome and again, I'm not naming the other party that were involved. But there is a cost and I'm going to get to the point of the financial aspect of this because there is a cost. And I'm going to get to the point of the financial aspect of this because there is a cost. Mediation any court would rather the plaintiff and the defendant work things out first, but the cost if you're involving an attorney are attorney fees. That one that I just mentioned was a significant cost to my wife and I, but the outcome was worth the cost. And the outcome wasn't necessarily a monetary benefit. There were other benefits. Just living peacefully was really a benefit for us, but again it was a monetary amount that we had to pay.
Speaker 2:The next mediation, you know, kind of involved me in regards to helping out a client and I'm not going to get too much in the weeds on that one. But there's a party that was also doing some nefarious things to one of my clients and I got served papers in regards to being my client's certified financial planner and you can probably imagine that didn't go over well with me. I have to keep documentation and the documentation that I kept because this issue had been going on for a while between my client and this other party, because this issue had been going on for a while between my client and this other party. When I produced documentation, the other party was more than willing to go to mediation. That's a byproduct and something that I never would have thought of working with clients and something that is um, intangible, um helping them out. But I guess that comes with the territory of helping people out with money and you know, kind of advising them and getting them in contact with the right people, and so, um, I was happy to do that for my client and I was happy to see that the documentation that I was able to produce negated anything that the other party was stating. And they quickly kind of conceded and said that we are more than willing to go to mediation. But again, there was a cost there.
Speaker 2:Going through the legal system is not cheap, and so I really just wanted to touch on mediation. I'm going to kind of read formally what mediation specifically is from my AI friend on Google Mediation is a process where a neutral third party, the mediator, facilitates communication and negotiation between disputing parties to help them reach a mutually acceptable agreement, often used as an alternative to litigation, and so, like I had said before, I kind of paraphrased, that the court system is going to want you to go through mediation first if there's a legal dispute, before it gets to a judge. I'm not sure in regards to the legal system if they have a jury in that realm or not. Again, I'm not an expert, but I have been through mediation a few times and I can speak on my experience and my experience alone. I'd say it's not an intimidating process, and the other thing that I can say is that the things that have helped me going through mediation were being hyper prepared, knowing my facts and having all documentation, and I found it interesting that some of the folks that I've gone to mediation with were not prepared at all and simply the fact of being prepared versus not being prepared can make a huge difference when you're going to mediation. So that's one of the ancillary things I thought I would kind of bring to the table, and it's not something that's very common, and I thought it was kind of out of the box when I had to go well, start preparing for mediation for one of my clients to be part of that process, which was very interesting.
Speaker 2:So I hope you liked this episode and I hope you learned a few things from this too. I'm going to give a few resources in regards to mediation and learning about the process, and there's all types of mediation, so I'm just going to give a few resources here. Mediatecom, aaamediationorg and these two resources gives articles, a directory of professional mediators and just a lot of good information on the mediation process. Not something that you're necessarily going to find in regards to this podcast a lot of information, but I have the experience of at least going to mediation two or three times and on the verge of going again. So hope this helps you out and cheers. See you on the next episode.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to our podcast. If you are a client and are looking to work directly with Chris and or our firm, head on over to Life After Grief FP. That is Life After Grief FP. The FP is for financial planning. If you are an advisor looking to emotionally and financially work with your client in grief, or if you are a client looking to get your advisor's head in the game, head on over to lifeaftergriefconsultingcom. That is lifeaftergriefconsultingcom. Any related information referenced in this week's podcast will be located here in the podcast section. Thank you.