The Expert Podcast

A lot of clients ask if their case is too complex or complicated for mediation. Here's a good example from Las Vegas, where there was a very serious fire at a hotel. It was a deadly fire that killed, I believe, 15 people. This case has a lot of complications. It's being settled through mediation. According to the news story, there were 15 lawsuits filed after the fire, and there were 20 defendants—the building's owner, the wife, companies that were involved with the fire. So this is a complicated case.

The article says that the lawsuit was close to a resolution. How is it being done? The parties have gone through multiple rounds of mediation in an attempt to reach a settlement. They believe that a resolution is likely in the coming weeks. Right? So think about it—you have 15 lawsuits, you have 20 defendants, dozens of plaintiffs—and if this thing went to court, it might take a decade. We've seen cases where five, six, eight years, ten years go by in all the legal fees, all the court appearances that have to happen in order to get that case done.

And even then, plaintiffs sometimes can disappear, they can die, they can move away. Sometimes defendants go out of business. A resolution through mediation, even though in this case it probably takes a couple years, can be much more efficient, save some money. More importantly, it can speed up the process of getting a resolution.

Look, if you go to court, you're at the mercy of the court calendar or the docket—getting cases on the docket, getting hearings on the docket. And if the court's busy, it might take a long time to get all those things done. But mediation can be done in the private sector at a much faster pace. It's also voluntary. You don't have to agree with what the mediator says. You can reject it and move on to litigation. Once a court says something, you're done. You have to abide by what that court says.

So yes, mediation can handle complicated cases—this is a perfect example. Or it can handle simple cases like small claims, or divorce, or probate cases, which aren't quite as complicated, and resolve those quickly and privately as well.