Exploring Alternatives to Court: Mediation, Arbitration, and Parenting Coordinators (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: During the pandemic, the B.C. court system was mostly closed leading to hundreds of hearings and trials being postponed and for many new hearing dates have yet to be set. It's leading some people to look for ways to resolve their legal disputes outside of court and joining us now is family lawyer Stuart Zuckerman with some tips on how to do that. Good morning, Stuart.

Speaker 2: Morning.

Speaker 1: Okay, so let's talk about the legal disputes that do end up in the courtroom. They can be very costly, trials can be very costly. How do people resolve disputes without going down this route?

Speaker 2: Well, any time there's a legal dispute, it usually begins with negotiations, but if the negotiations fail, ultimately a costly trial is the only way to bring the matter to a final resolution, but there are alternatives to that and those solutions and procedures are called alternative dispute resolution and they help you resolve legal disputes outside of court such as mediation, arbitration, and in family law disputes you can appoint a parenting coordinator to resolve your legal dispute.

Speaker 1: Okay, so let's dive into this a little bit further. What is mediation specifically?

Speaker 2: So mediation is a procedure in which a trained impartial third person such as myself assists the parties in reaching a settlement. So it's an informal meeting among the parties together typically in a boardroom or in some cases the mediator shuffles back and forth or between the two rooms that the parties are in and brings positions of each of the parties and arguments and discussions about potential settlement between the parties to help them work out a resolution. It's usually voluntary, but it can be required by way of a notice to mediate in the BC court system or mandated by a contract in a commercial case and the mediator is typically a person with patience and persistence and common sense and a number of negotiation techniques that helps ensure that the parties actually hear and acknowledge each other's side of the dispute and that person tries to find a solution that's agreeable or lead the parties to find an agreeable solution to both of them and the mediator has no power to force a resolution to the conflict. He can give his opinion as to what the courts might do if this was in court, but he can't bind the parties to the solution that he recommends if they won't agree on their own.

Speaker 1: So what happens, Stuart, if the parties cannot come to an agreement through mediation? Is there something called arbitration that's an option?

Speaker 2: Right, so both arbitration and parenting coordinators work this way. The parties typically hire the arbitrator first or the parenting coordinator as a mediator first, but he's authorized under a contract to be the final determiner of the issues that are laid out in the contract. So if it's a family law dispute, you can hire a mean arbitrator who first tries to mediate and then either in his role as an arbitrator or as a parenting coordinator, if the parties can't come to a solution, he hears evidence and arguments from both of them and he makes a final decision, which is written and it's binding on both parties. It's just the same as a court order would be binding.

Speaker 1: So options other than going to court, how are these options better, arbitration, mediation or a parenting coordinator?

Speaker 2: Well, they're all better than going through the court process. Few people realize that when you go to a trial, the judge only hears from each side for less than four hours per day because there's lunch breaks and morning and afternoon breaks. And then he renders a decision typically after four or five days of trial that affects the parties for the rest of their lives. In mediation and arbitration with parenting coordinator, much more time is spent face to face in each day of the discussions between the parties and the mediator or arbitrator, sometimes eight to 12 hours a day. And the mediator gets to know the parties and fully understand their fears and interests that are behind their positions and better help them come to a resolution. Plus, it's much more affordable because the parties are typically splitting the fees of one lawyer instead of both hiring their own. It's much more timely, the resolution. You can get a decision in a few days or a week rather than sometimes many months at court. You get private sessions. It's all confidential. Nobody can sit in the meeting, whereas at the courthouse, people can sit in and listen in the courtroom. And the cost overall is much less than the average cost of time and money that goes into litigations. And parties can usually schedule mediation or arbitration within weeks of a decision to do that. And you can get it all over with very quickly compared to the court process.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it can be lengthy. It sounds like a good way for people to resolve their disputes. Stuart Zuckerman, family lawyer, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

Speaker 2: You're welcome.