Mediation is not a legal proceeding, and it can be a useful tool in a wide range of situations where people have differing views. Many of these situations, such as adult siblings who can't agree on the best way to care for aging parents, or coworkers trying to work through a disagreement, would never end up in court, but mediation can help. At its core, mediation is about helping people communicate clearly enough to find their own way forward — something courts, by design, ar

Ask anyone to define mediation (not meditation with an extra t), and you'll likely hear some version of the same answer: "Isn't that the thing you do before a trial?" It's a fair guess, as mediation tends to be introduced to people for the first time by a judge, an attorney, or a court order, often as a required step on the way to litigation. Unfortunately, that framing sells mediation short, and it's the reason so many people never consider it until they're already mired in