Update: Mediation Options

I’m proud to share that I recently completed the national mediation course, with 48 hours of training through the ADR Institute of Canada (via ADRIA).🎓

Almost a year ago, I started down this path with the idea that I might want to offer estate mediation services in the future. I also knew that the skills would be valuable in my practice—and in life—regardless.

But what ended up being most interesting to me is how much the concepts of interest-based mediation align with the core values and practices we’ve already established at Modern Wills.

Interest-based mediation is about truly listening, ensuring people are heard and understood, and empowering them to make decisions they feel good about. And that’s exactly what I aim to do as an estates lawyer: empower clients to feel confident about decisions that may have previously felt daunting.

In the context of estate planning, this means listening to a client’s circumstances and goals in their words, having in-depth discussions about the options available, providing advice where appropriate … and then confirming their instructions. (I’ve never understood how you could ask for final instructions without all those important steps happening first.)

This mediation certification has energized me to continue growing Modern Wills in the areas we have already been building. We have something really exciting we have been working on for a while. But it has also inspired me to offer more "family meeting"-type options for clients and their loved ones when appropriate.

Whether it’s explaining a newly crafted estate plan to your adult children, or assisting multiple siblings with the division of personal effects during estate administration, the structure of mediation can be so useful. I've learned mediation need not be the formal process that many of us lawyers think of. It can be helpful before a situation even rises to the level of someone filing a claim.

-Britta