The Expert Podcast

If you do a mediation for your lawsuit or conflict, you may be surprised to know that a mediator can give you a lot of information that you might not think is available from a mediator. Now, a mediator is not an attorney and cannot give you legal advice, but they can provide legal information. What that might entail are things like what your rights are—your legal rights and your personal rights for your case. A mediator can point out the laws that might be applicable in your case.

They can also, in most cases, tell you what approaches the court might take in your scenario. For example, they might tell you that the court is likely to do this or that the court is likely to interpret your facts in a certain way. They can also tell you what they've seen in the past with similar cases. This is where it gets a little more advanced. In most cases, a licensed mediator can tell you what legal principles the court is likely to apply. While they can't give you advice on what to do about it, they can inform you.

For instance, the mediator might say, "Look, the court is very likely to look at it this way" or "The court is very likely to apply this law." They can also tell you what factors the court is going to take into account when they look at your case. If you don't get a successful mediation, they can explain what the court might do if it goes to full-blown litigation.

In fact, the only question that a mediator can't really answer is the outcome if you go to court—what the court is going to decide or what the judgment will be. That's up to the court and the judge, based on the evidence presented. A mediator can tell you what laws the court might apply and what questions the court might ask, but as far as the outcome, that's a whole different story. Your attorney might be able to give you some suggestions on that, but the mediator can only provide legal information—not necessarily legal advice.