Speaker 1: If you're involved in a family court case, whether it's a custody case, a parenting time case, a child support case, or a case that just involves a disposition of property, you may be required or you may be asked to participate in mediation prior to going to trial. And I think this is probably in your best interest going to mediation. A lot of times people going into mediation are terrified about going into mediation, especially if they don't have attorneys representing them or an attorney representing them. So in this video, I'm going to cover a few of the important things you should know prior to going into mediation and things that you should be doing and things that you should not be doing. If you're headed to mediation, you're in the right place. Keep watching. If you haven't already subscribed to the Command the Courtroom YouTube channel, go ahead and do that now. All you have to do is hit the notification bell below. And once you hit that notification bell, you're going to get an alert each time Command the Courtroom releases a new video, so you won't want to miss those videos. And also, if you like this video, please give it a thumbs up. Don't forget to like it. Don't forget to like Command the Courtroom. This will help keep the videos coming. I'll know that you're watching, that you're benefiting, and it keeps me going too. My name is Wendy Hernandez. I'm a Phoenix family law attorney. I've been practicing family law since 1999. I've been a licensed attorney since 1996, and I'm also the creator of Command the Courtroom. I created the Command the Courtroom channel because I felt passionate about helping people in the family law courtroom get educated, inspired, empowered, and feeling confident about walking into the courtroom, especially when they don't have attorneys. But what I've learned is even a lot of people who do have attorneys watch the videos as well. I just want you to feel ready for probably one of the biggest battles of your life. And that's why I do this. All right, so let's dive into the topic for today, and that is mediation. So in every single contested case that I have, I encourage my client to try to resolve the disputes with the other party. And the reason is this, because if you don't resolve the issues with the other party, then the case is going to go to a judge. And the judge, who is a stranger to you and to your family, is going to make all the decisions about your life. And to me, that's terrifying. If I were in that situation, I wouldn't want that. I would want to have some control over what my future looks like. And one of the best ways to have that control and maintain that control is to go into mediation and try to work it out with the other side. Mediation is not easy. Mediation can be difficult. In mediation, you're going to be asked to compromise and give up some things and let go of your eagle a little bit. And that's why a lot of people don't want to go into mediation. But the other alternative is going to trial and having a judge hurt you or hurt your ego or enter orders that you don't think are in the best interest of your family. As a result, a lot of people come to me going into mediation. Even if I'm not their attorney, they ask, well, like, what are the things that you think I should know going into mediation? Like I need a little pep talk. So that's what I'm going to do here is give you a pep talk on mediation. The first thing about mediation is you need to know that any agreements that you enter into should be made voluntarily. What that means is nobody should be forcing you into mediation agreements. Like you should not have your arm twisted. You should not be threatened to make agreements at mediation. You should not be forced. You should not be coerced. If you enter into an agreement at mediation, it should be of your own free will. It is something that you should make an independent decision to do. And if somebody is forcing you to make an agreement at mediation that you really don't think is in your best interest or your children's best interest, then maybe you should think twice before signing off on that paperwork. Now, I'm not saying that at mediation you're not going to be asked to compromise. And I'm not saying that that won't feel uncomfortable because it will. But what I am saying is if somebody is threatening you at mediation, then that's kind of a red flag. You should not be forced at mediation to do something that you do not want to do, that you're very opposed to, and that is more than just something. So going into mediation, know that you cannot be forced and you should not be forced to make agreements that you do not want to make. Little discomfort? Yes, that's okay. Being forced? Not okay. Okay. So the second thing about mediation and mediated agreements and settlement agreements are that they should be made knowingly. So what do I mean by that? Well, you should only be making decisions after you've been given full disclosure of the entire situation, the entire financial situation, the other party's financials. You have to have disclosure complete when you go into mediation. Otherwise, you cannot enter into an agreement knowingly. If you enter into agreements and you don't have all of the information, you could be surprised down the road to learn that your soon-to-be ex has a bank account full of money down the road, but you didn't resolve it because you didn't have that info and you entered into agreements despite not having the info. So the best time to go into mediation is when you have all of the information that you need to make a knowing and intelligent decision. Prior to going into mediation, make sure that your disclosure is complete in your case and also that discovery has been complete and that you have the answers you need, you have the information you need, you have the statements you need, the tax returns you need, the bank statements you need, the records that you need. You have everything you need so you can have looked at it by the time of mediation to know what you're getting yourself into, to know what you may be giving up. All right. So if you're going through a family law case, I want you to tell me right now, have you been through mediation and what was the experience like going through mediation? And if you haven't gone through mediation yet, is that something you'd be willing to consider? And if so, why do you think it might be a good idea in your case? So leave me a comment below about why you might be willing to go to mediation, why you might think it'd be a good idea and what your experience was like if you have been through it already. All right. So let's talk about my third and final point as it relates to mediation. Oftentimes, parties go into mediation and neither is represented by an attorney. The only attorney in many cases is the person who's actually the mediator. And not all mediators are attorneys, by the way. And not all attorneys who are mediators are family law attorneys. So you just should know that as well. But oftentimes, people do not have attorneys going into mediation. And they have questions around agreements that they are considering entering into. It's not an unreasonable request for you to make to ask to reconvene at a later time or to take a break so you can consult with an attorney about the agreement you're about to make to make sure that it's fair and that it's in the best interest of the children if you have children. So this is probably one of the biggest events that you're going to go through, this family law case. And you want to do it right. If you're going through mediation, you are doing something right because you're trying to resolve it outside of the courtroom. But you don't want to make a fatal mistake simply because you didn't have the right information in front of you and you weren't provided with the opportunity to talk to an attorney about the law in your state. So if you have questions about an agreement that you're about to enter into, ask. If you can take a break and consult with an attorney, even if the break is a week break, a day break, hours long break, if you already consulted with an attorney and have a relationship with an attorney, it's okay. And the mediator should understand that. And if the mediator doesn't, then I would have questions about the mediator. So take that break. And when you consult with that attorney who is representing your interest, there's a couple of things you should be talking to that attorney about. Number one, you should be talking to the attorney about what the law is in your jurisdiction related to the issues in your case. So if you have child custody issues or parenting time issues, legal decision issues, the attorney should be educating you and saying, hey, like this is the law in the state of whatever, Pennsylvania. This is the type of case where a judge would award sole decision making or sole custody or joint. And this is the type of parenting plan that the court would typically enter. And the attorney that you consult with should also be applying that law to the facts of your case. Each case is unique. There are different circumstances in each case. No two parties are alike. No children, you know, the children of one family are just not, are not just like the children of another family. So each case is unique. And the attorney that you're consulting with will understand that and is going to give you hopefully the straight info about how the law should be applied to the facts of your case. Now, the attorney that you consult with is going to help you apply the law to the facts of your case. And at that point you're going to get validated or maybe you're going to have some questions come up that you need to go back to the mediator in a joint session with your soon to be ex or ex and talk about with either way, having an attorney on your side, if just to provide an opinion on the potential agreement you're about to enter into is going to give you some peace of mind. You're going to know that you are informed about what the law is and that you're going to understand how that law applies to the facts of your case. So don't be shy about asking for a break to talk to your own attorney about potential agreements and how those may unfold in the future. It's too important to have questions. Make sure all your questions are answered prior to signing on the dotted line. All right. So that's about all I have to say on mediation. If one of the aspects of your case that you're going through right now is child custody or parenting time, you're going to need to know about the best interest factors. One of the best ways to learn about the best interest factors is to download my best interest checklist that I created many years ago. The link is below. Get that free checklist. It's going to help you know what you should be presenting to the judge and what you should be telling the other court or the other side that you're going to present to support your case. Don't forget to check out this video as well as all the other command the courtroom videos. If you like this video, be sure and give it a thumbs up. Don't forget to hit the notification bell to subscribe and you'll get alerted each time a new video is released. And until I see you next time, keep on trucking and get out there and command the courtroom.