People across the U.S. are increasingly finding success in turning to mediation to handle elder law issues within the family.
Mediation has become increasingly popular through the years for handling disputes within families with some state courts going so far as to require a mediation attempt before hearing custody disputes. It is likely to be more satisfying to all parties concerned if an agreement can be reached within the family rather than the court issuing a decision.
Mediation has been so successful that it is now being seen as a good option in other legal fields that involve disputes between relatives, such as elder law.
This trend was recently reported by Daily Local News in “Mediation for elder issues can prevent litigation.”
The process of mediation is pretty simple. The parties choose an independent, trained mediator to facilitate negotiations. The mediator is not there to tell the parties what to decide or to pressure them into reaching an agreement. Instead, the mediator helps keep the discussion productive as the parties work toward their own solution.
Mediation can be used in a wide array of elder law disputes, such as when siblings disagree about the care of an elderly parent or when the costs of going to court for a particular matter are prohibitive.
Mediation may not be a good idea when the parties could get violent or when the case involves extremely technical legal matters.
An elder law attorney could be helpful in resolving these issues.
Reference: Daily Local News (Feb. 15, 2016) “Mediation for elder issues can prevent litigation.”
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