The mediation process can provide attorneys, accountants and financial advisors with valuable information about the clients' subjective interests and needs that should be addressed in the estate plan. A mediator explains the process to each spouse. Joint meetings and individual conferences are scheduled as appropriate. Others are interviewed only with client and attorney approval. The mediator helps the parties face and resolve important subjective issues that otherwise would continue to fester because they were not disclosed to, and thus not addressed by, the attorneys.
Mediation assists the attorneys in collecting all segments of the family puzzle.
A mediator does not need to be an expert in estate planning, but does need to be familiar with its basic principles and terminology. Expertise in the mediation process and the unique ability to talk with each person, in confidence, makes the mediator a valuable member of the estate planning team. Mediation builds on latent goodwill. It is the catalyst used to transform disparate messages into a meaningful collage. The estate planners use their expertise to integrate this information with other data in developing the plan.