Squabbles Over the Family Summer Home? Don’t Hire a Lawyer Just Yet

For a fortunate few, the onset of summer elicits nostalgic recollections of time spent at the family’s summer home, carefree days spent by crystalline azure waters, and raucous cookouts enjoyed with neighborhood children. But, as time trudges forward and memories grow hazy, siblings may look at the summer home with less reverence and more of a desire for acquisition. In some instances, siblings are willing to hire attorneys to make their case in court. In order to avoid this expensive and emotionally charged process, transformative mediation may serve as a viable alternative.

Transformative mediation, unlike traditional mediation, has the singular goal of getting the parties involved to think differently. The United States Postal Service implemented the process in an effort to solve underlying conflicts between workers. Previous efforts to utilize traditional methods of mediation lead to settlements, but employees returned to work with the same concerns. Though transformative mediation has great potential to lead parties to an agreement, the process can be prohibitively expensive, long, and precariously subject the each party’s willingness to cooperate.

See Paul Sullivan, Squabbles Over the Family Summer Home? Don’t Hire a Lawyer Just Yet, The New York Times, August 18, 2017.

Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (Professional Legal Marketing (PLM, Inc.) for bringing this article to my attention.