Probate and Trust Mediation, with Lee Jay Berman

0:01 So much of probate and trust ends up in litigation and one thing that happens is more money gets wasted and spent than is being argued over in many cases. It can be never ending. It can be frustrating as a real estate agent is obviously frustrating. And what are the alternatives? Well, one alternative is to get a neutral third party who can help both sides come to solution that may not be exactly what they're looking for but better than the outcome would be otherwise. Really excited to have today here with me Lijay Burman who is a leading mediator based here in Southern California but mediates matters across the country. Lee, thank you so much for joining us. Pleasure, Bill. Thanks for having me. So, you know, I can imagine a mediator would be ideal upfront, but I also know that there are times when people are so dug in into litigation and gone down the road, they might say, "Well, it's too late for that. We've already committed to this." But that might be the best time for people to mediate. When is the best time to mediate? Is it before or after the cow the cows got out of the barn? So great question, Bill. And most people don't think about it in those terms, so I appreciate you doing so. I think earlier is better for me as a mediator. The sooner I'm called in, the better. Pre-litigation is ideal because we have more flexibility and it's not it's not framed by the four corners of complaint at that point. And nobody's suing anybody yet. They're just hitting a speed bump and so I can help them through. We can be more creative.

1:29 There are more options available to us. Assets are more flexible, all that sort of thing. Once they get into litigation, I find that staying on a mediation track even though they're in litigation is helpful because sometimes I'll sit with the lawyers and we will mediate the discovery disputes. We'll mediate what they need to know in order to sit down and have a good settlement discussion. Which is a very different sort of threshold than what they need to be ready to go to trial where they have to be ready for everything, right? So I can be helpful at every stage of the process, but I like it best when I'm called in early so that I can really work with the parties and their lawyers and be creative and help people resolve it before there's too much bloodshed. Yeah. The nature of litigation is I never thought about that. You really have to be ready for everything. The reason why you have depositions and you have interrogatories is because you have to find out everything that could be there. Not that the other part is hiding something necessarily, but you know, as well, if you're in trial, you don't want to discover you miss something along the way versus narrowing down the dispute is one way to also narrow down the work and the preparation and the cost, which is part of the process as well. Yeah, exactly. True. And you know, it's funny when you say narrowing down the cost.

2:49 Some of the attorneys watching this might think, "Oh, he's trying to cut into my income." But the good ones know that it's all about referrals, especially in the probate world. The happier your clients are at the end of a case, the more they're going to refer you. And you know what they say, a good a good experience, a customer will refer three people. If they have a bad experience, they'll tell 10 or 20 people not to use that person. So to me, a lawyer building a practice in this arena wants happy clients and that's my focus. My job is to make the clients happy with me and with their lawyer and with the outcome. You know, you say that about reputation and the problem in big cities is we are so anonymous. You know, if you're in a small city, your reputation is everything. In LA County, it is important to have good reputation amongst your fellow bar members in your practice and the judges. But there are plenty of attorneys who I think that they can be anonymous and take advantage of people do a bad job and nobody will know. And the thing is that those of us in those cases, we know the attorneys running up the bill. You can feel it, you can smell it, you can see it, you can taste it, their customers see that. I think the judge sees that. And those things always work out to hurt you. I always feel like if you can just do a good job for a customer, whether you get paid or not, help them move forward, you get paid eventually.

4:09 Sometimes not by that client, sometimes not on that case, but you'll get paid at some point in time. So, it just take a little courage for attorneys to bring you in, I can imagine. But also, most attorneys won't, you know, they're going to get paid substantially on a case that settles. Still, they don't have to put all the energy in of going to trial, which is, I think, the hardest part of their job. I, you know, I think how many lawyers I've been doing this 30 years. How many lawyers have told me over the years, I went to law school to help people and now I end up doing litigation, having discovery battles with the other side and motions to compel discovery and it's so wasteful because of always the other side, right? What you're talking about that treating each other like they're disposable, if you will, in a big city like this. You know, with 40,000 members of our county bar association, it's it is easy to hide. At least people think so. What I've learned though is that in the probate arena, like a few other specialized areas of practice, it is kind of a smaller circle. And those who are in, you know, the regular players who see each other all the time, it doesn't take long for people to get a feel for an attorney's reputation, whether they're new to the state or new to the practice or they've just been doing the same thing for 30 years and nobody wants to work with them. Right. In LA County, we do have a I think it's a bar sponsored free or reduced cost mediation program. But you know, in life, you always get what you pay for and I feel like the county may not be the best resource to get these things. What's the difference between the county provided or preferred mediator, I think it's a mandatory mediation, if I remember correctly, versus, the one party or both parties, considering a private mediator.

5:56 So when I first started, I took 30 years ago my first mediation training and the first thing I did was go to the courts and start volunteering my time so that I got some experience and I got to meet some lawyers and start to sort of launch my practice. But there's a reason that one of the taglines on my advertising and my websites and stuff says there's no substitute for experience. For me, I've been doing it over 30 years, over 3,000 mediations, and the way I invest in the people and the case. I talk to everybody, generally an hour per person before I walk into a mediation. So, I know what everybody wants, what they think. I've talked to the lawyers, they've briefed it. I frontload the process so that I can be more helpful when I walk in the room. Where a lot of those V volunteer programs, they just walk in and say, "Hey, tell me what's going on." And sometimes they only have two or three hours or something. And me like there's one case I've worked with that's a very large family and a very complex setup with four trusts, three LLC's, four trustees, five lawyers, and six of the 11 siblings who are unrepresented by council. Trying to take that to a volunteer mediator or even in front of a judge. There's so much to sort out. It takes somebody who's going to roll up their sleeves, dig in, give it the time, be a quick study, understand all of it, and then also understand the personalities of all the siblings and the players and the lawyers and the trustees and work with them with patience and strategy to help them find a way to solve everything that's going on. That just doesn't happen in a volunteer mediation.

7:46 You know, the cases like that, cases that are complex, cases that are high-profile, cases that have a lot at stake, those are the ones that they need a private mediator. Not every case does, but for the ones that have a lot on the line or a lawyer who's got a client who's a little bit of a loose cannon or difficult to manage, they sometimes need a mediator to really hold their hand and help manage the client. We have to yeah when you describe managing the client and loose cannon and difficult customers one of the common threads I find with them is there are people who have who feel nobody's been listening to them and they have a lot they want to talk about and I know as a professional sometimes I just sit and the beauty of being on video is I can play with something while they're talking quietly perhaps but they it just seems that the most important thing is just to listen and let them vent. To kind of get out the poison that's in their system on whatever the issue is. And then at some point you'll recognize they're going to give you a little piece of gold, which is this is what I what I really want. I've been saying I want all this, but I really just want this. And if you can give them that second thing, you can help resolve the problem. So as a mediator, you know, you're you know, neutral. But and you have to listen to both parties. How often do you find it's just something of if this person just sat for an hour on their own, they would have figured this out?

9:06 Why, you know, why' they bring me into this? And the answer is because they decided they don't want to listen or they don't have to listen. Yeah, it's true. And you know, with some mediators, they don't have the training or they don't have the time. For I've had two different friends call me who are in mediations. Both women both called me from the ladies room crying, saying, "My male lawyer and male mediator are both screaming at me. Is this what's supposed to happen?" And my answer both times was no. Like, get out of there. Or you know give them put one of them on the phone with me like let's get to the bottom of this because they didn't know what to do with her and she did need to be heard and nobody had listened to her. I don't think that venting for the sake of venting is usually very helpful but being deeply listened to and heard and having somebody say so let me make sure I understand this right this and this and this and this and this and you're here because of this. Then they go, "Yes, finally you understand that it's really." So, one of my not my mentor, but one of my idols in the mediation world when I started way back when was Senator Mitchell who helped bring peace to Northern Ireland. And he was the first one in a hundred years who had actually been able to accomplish this. And when they interviewed the people afterwards, they said, "Why was he able to do what no one else was able to do?" And this person said he out listened us.

10:39 I've listened to everything everybody says. And how they say it requires incredible focus, but every bit of it's important. They're doing it for a reason. They're saying it for a reason. They're giving it an intonation for a reason. They're bringing it up right now for a reason. And the worst thing I could do is dismiss them. I mean, what I really want to do is say, "Tell me why we're talking about this right now. Help me understand what about it is so important to you and then I'm digging down into it with them and also helping to focus them and bring them to a point so that we can figure that out and move forward. Yeah. I think some people just need to be listened to like 10 times more than average and if you're in a relationship with them then you've signed on to that. You may not like it. And I think as a real estate agent, you know, there are times up front where I see people need a lot more attention than I can provide. And I will politely, professionally, you know, find somebody else to give them the service that's going to give them what they want. And I've had people ask me why. And I'll tell them, I just don't have the time. You know, I'm busy. I have a family life. I have a personal life. I have a business life. And I appreciate you need this, but I can't provide that. At the same time, once you've signed on, you really have an obligation to take the time to listen. I think that this is where things break down. I hear this from customers of attorneys all the times, clients, that my attorney won't talk to me, doesn't listen to me, not available. You're just throwing gasoline on that fire because if they're mad at their attorney, they're going to be doubly mad at the other party and they're going to they're going to express it one way or the other. It's going to come out. That rage, that frustration is going to come out. So now in the course of mediation, do you ever get into, you know, coaching or training up the parties on how to interact as far as the attorneys with their clients?

12:20 Absolutely. Yes. Absolutely. 100%. Especially with family members because they're stuck in their dynamic since they were kids. You know, with this big family. One of the stories was, you know, when this one was nine and fell and cracked his skull and what the other ones did and, you know, they're stuck in these old and these people are in their 60s and 70s. So, they're stuck in these old dialogues, these old ways of, you know, telling the same story over and over to each other and the other side not still hearing it after all these years. So, for me, I'm an interpreter sometimes. I'm saying this is why she's telling you this story. She wants you to understand this and in, you know, in private and for you to get what you want today, you've got to help her get that. And then she'll agree to something that gives you what you want today. And they suddenly go, "Oh, I get it now." That's why she's telling me this story for the 140th time, you know, that kind of thing. So it's helping people. I do translate a lot. You know, Bill, my work isn't that different from yours. You know, you're you have the listing, but you've also you're negotiating between buyer and seller, and you're kind of mediating when they start getting a little bit too down into the weeds or when they start demanding and banging the table. It's our job to help them get beyond that and to figure out what they really need so that we can get the deal done. And sometimes people just insist on being self-destructive. In fact, I'm in a case right now where the other part the other party's agent insists on calling my client and yelling at him and insists on calling my client's attorney and yelling at him because we have a relationship. I keep saying a, it's inappropriate.

13:55 You're not really allowed to by ethics, right? But b, you're also shooting yourself in the foot by doing this. And I've told him, I think at least 10 times, and he just, well, why is that a big deal? Well, why can't I talk to him directly? You know, sometimes these ethics are these rules are set up for a reason. And some people some people just can't play by the rules and you get in these situations with people and that's why there's attorneys I guess in court some people just won't follow the rule and they need a judge to hit the gam gabble and say this is my decision. Yes. And let's take the flip side of it if they know they're going before a judge. So it doesn't matter if the other person hates them or not, if they insult them or not. At the end of the day the judge is just going to decide. So in that kind of a setting, it almost allows for that kind of behavior because it doesn't matter. The judge is just going to decide, right? You don't do that to the judge. You do that to each other sometimes. In mediation, it's a really interesting dynamic because one of the things I say to them, you know, top of the morning at 9:00 a.m. Is everybody came here today looking for something. And even if that something is just a release and signing off on a form at the end of the day, it's the people sitting around this table who have what you came here for today. And as soon as people recognize that the person they're talking to, now in the litigation process, it is a battle. You do want to defeat the other person. But for days, for today's purposes in mediation, it isn't about winning over them. It's actually about winning them over because they hold what you want. So for today's purposes, you haven't empowered me like the judge to forcibly take what belongs to one person and give it to another.

15:37 Right? You all have to do that with each other for today. So it's a different process. It's a different orientation. And it's what that intends to do, Bill, is dangle a carrot instead of waving the stick. Instead of saying, "Hey, the ethical rules prevent you from talking that way." Instead, we dangle the carrot and say, "What is it you came here for today?" And don't they have it right now or the ability to give it to you? And shouldn't you think about that when you think about how you're addressing them? So, it makes them want something instead of, you know, being told to be a good boy or girl and follow the rules. So, let's talk about mediation from a business point of view. When people get involved with you, what percentage of your business comes from attorneys? What percentage from heirs, benefactors, and what percentage comes from real estate agents or other professionals? In the in the probate trust space in particular, probate trust space, it's 90% plus attorneys. This is the space where people feel over their heads. They don't understand the law. They see litigation coming or it's already there and they want the advice of counsel and it's smart for them to want that. When Realtors® see something tangled up, I'll get involved in a real estate transaction or in the division of real estate. If the siblings just need to sort of sort out who's going to get which properties, I do a lot of that. But most of it come even those come from the attorneys because they're the ones who hold the clients in the palms of their hands. They're the ones who are there to help counsel and guide the clients. So, I'm as much help to them as I am to their clients because I can help their clients hear things that they just may not be hearing from their own lawyer sometimes. And sometimes that it's difficult for a lawyer if you think about it. The lawyer has to be the advocate. We're going to go to trial.

17:30 We're going to beat these guys. We've got a great case and has to be able to instill that confidence in the client or the client's confidence in them. With me. I can be devil's advocate a little bit more so and I can help ease the lawyer through some questions around risk and downside and don't you wish that you know your client actually in the hand of cards that you're holding that represents this case. Don't you wish you had one or two more cards like that signed will that nobody can find or you know whatever it is that the people are looking for you know assignment or something that they were holding that they didn't record or whatever. In instances like that, I can help the lawyer help me give the client the tough news without the lawyer losing face as still being the advocate who's going to fight for you should that day come. So, it's a difficult place that the lawyers in kind of a rocking chair between giving the client the bad news and also supporting them as an advocate. I can see where two attorneys will, you know, agree on a mediator and bring you in. Are there cases where there is an attorney who has maybe three or four areas we're fighting and he's saying listen I represent the estate you all are entire to your opinion but we need to get on the same page here and then bring you in not through attorneys but bring you in as he's representing the estate and there are parties of that.

18:53 Sure. Absolutely. I've served as a neutral in that way in some ways almost a bit like a fiduciary. I've been given documents to review sort of in camera like you might a judge so that they're not being shared if they're if they're not ready to be shared yet, but I can divulge what they say because, you know, I've seen it and I can tell you what it says, but I can't show you the document or whatever. All sorts of interesting, creative ways to use me in the middle as a neutral. And I work with the lawyers to help figure out some of those ways. What do you need from me? What's keeping you from being able to settle this case without me that I can bring to the table and provide? What are one or two and most common mistakes you see people make that aggravate a situation to where they need litigation and or don't take on a mediator. So the two obvious ones that I can think of, one is just bad behavior. The blowh hard, chest thumping, doesn't listen to anybody. Oftentimes, a narcissist who just doesn't want to listen to anybody, doesn't want to bring a mediator in, doesn't want to tell me the truth if I'm in. And is just all outward focused, yelling, screaming, knowing it all, and not taking anything in. Those are the ones that with my training and experience, I do the best I can to get through to them. And often I'm able to and sometimes it takes some time and some repetition. But having that kind of an attitude that's just a bulldozer moving forward and not wanting to listen to anybody or hear anything is one of the first mistakes.

20:35 So, if you're if you've got people like that in your dispute, or if you're one of those, think about how much that's hurting you because often times disputes could be resolved early, but for that kind of behavior and that makes them have to go through lots of litigation to get to the same place effectively. So that's one. The other is, sometimes they don't tell their lawyers the whole truth, and that's hard for them. Or they don't listen to their lawyers when their lawyers are giving them the bad news. So, it's it really is about helping some This is going to sound touchyfey but it really is about helping somebody get to a state of readiness and calmness where they can really hear me or hear their lawyer or hear each other because that moves the ball forward and sometimes it's the only thing that does. So, those are a couple of the top mistakes. It's usually around that. It's attitudinal as much as anything. That and you know the one who doesn't trust anybody, doesn't trust their siblings, doesn't even trust their lawyer, wants just to you know file litigation right out of the gate and scorch the earth because they just don't know what else to do or they think that's the way you solve a problem. And so I'm hoping that hearing this those folks or the attorneys of those folks might help them understand that's just going to cost them a lot of money and at the end of the day and no lawyer wants to do that when the lawyer can see that their own client is just not being logical, right? You know, I had one that I would call the extreme of that story. The extreme, you know, everything in life was a battle. He was arguing with people non-stop. He ran he ran a large business where he was screaming at people all day long. All his employees knew of him to be the bully and the screamer and that was his whole life and way he did business.

22:26 And you know initially when I met him for whatever reasons he was nice to me and he was decent. But once I got once I got involved with him it came out and I realized I it was hard because at that time business wasn't plentiful. But I had to realize you know I just don't really want to do business with him. And frankly, you know, one of the benefits of doing business with somebody is getting referrals and more from them. I don't want more from him. And I if people like him, I probably don't want to work with them, too. I think sometimes there's a case where you just have to say, "Listen, I just can't help you." Like, what you want is just not something I can provide. And in his case, we agreed even though he was screaming at me that I wouldn't. I said, "I'd be glad to cancel the listing." I know other Realtors® in the past have there's a there's a clause in the agreement that says once you list that you've agreed to a certain term and that you can't just cancel a listing unilaterally. It requires mutual agreement and most Realtors® will try to hold their client to that and say no you list with me for 6 months you go off the market but you know is my listing if it sells and my attitude I realized that day was you know I just don't want to work with him if he's that unhappy and that difficult and from this day that day forward I just said to customers I'm just going to ask you for 30 days notice just so I can tell whatever staff I have or partners that you're cancelling just to make it efficient because I'm entitled to that but to be honest if you don't want me to sell your house I want to sell your house. Yeah. Now, as a mediator, you don't have that privilege because the people are in this dispute to bring in to resolve it. But I imagine there are certain cases where you recognize the other party doesn't want to resolve the dispute. They really want to dispute.

24:03 They really, it's like a football game. They want to play football. They don't want to watch. They don't want to go home. They want to be involved. So, what happens when you're mediation and it just seems where you're clear that one of the parties or maybe both, but most commonly, I think one of the parties is just a fighter. They're never given an edge. The litigation is gonna draw out forever. Is there a point where you say this to the to that party and or the other parties or what do you do in those cases? Absolutely. So, Bill, you and I we're not in our 20s or 30s, right? We're seasoned. We've been we've been doing this a long time. We understand where things are headed when they start down a certain path. I It's funny you mentioned the giving them the listing back and canceling it voluntarily. I'm mediating one of those on Monday where the listing expired. They didn't renew it. Got kept showing the property and meanwhile they listed with another agent and sold to one of the people who was supposedly on this protected list that the first agent allegedly gave them. And you know the facts will all unfold on Monday. But yeah, it's a mess when people don't want to work together. They shouldn't be. And I've I'm in the same boat. I've had lawyers where I've said, you know, respectfully, no thank you. The first mediation we did together, was enough for me. You know, there's some of them who just they just blast everybody. They blast opposing councils, then they blast their own clients, and then they blast me. It's like, if that's how they want to go through the world, like you said earlier, I'm happy to say, let me help refer you to somebody who could be a better suited mediator for you because life is too short. And so what I do first is I test with them.

25:45 I sit down with them like knee to knee in front of them and I say, "Help me understand what you came here for today. Help me understand why you brought me in to help today. What is it that you're looking for that you're not getting here today?" And I have that conversation with them. Try to calm them down. Try to focus them on the finish line rather than the battle on the way between here and there. And if all they want to do is talk about the battle or sorry or engage in the battle and what they really want is to squash the other person, I tell them it's the wrong forum and certainly I'm the wrong mediator for it. So you know it we have the right to walk away and sometimes we sleep better at night knowing we've made the best decision and you know we've been doing it long enough that we have a book of business. We don't have to, you know, have every single case to pay the mortgage, you know. So, I'll share with you a little technique I use because at times you have to give let it go and it's frustrating. It's hard, right? You put time in, you feel invested. So, you could feel cheated. Hey, I'm entitled to get paid, but you know, I just know I'm never going to get paid on this. And you have to let it go emotionally. And so, one thing I do is I put on the theme song from Ice, Let It Go, where that girl sings a song. But there's a version where what's the guy's name? Chandler. He's like a he's like a bodybuilder guy. He's an actor.

27:06 And he went on lip-sync battle and sang that song wearing a tutu and ran around the room lip-syncing it. And so I do that. Let it go. Let it go. And you dance around like you're a little girl. If you do that for three minutes, it all comes out. You let it go. You move on. Because I think for some people, you need some mechanic to let it go. For years, for me, it was overeating. That's not a good one. Some people's exercise. That we all have bad habits but for me definitely those are difficult to do and I think that we have to acknowledge you know we can talk about in this conversation just let them go but it's more than that we lose some money we lost some time we feel bad we don't like people not respecting us even though they may be wrong for doing that and I would just say anybody's listening to this there's a little clean up to do and my best advice is let it go lip-sync battle what's the guy's name he's he was like a star in a movie about men strippers, like a really built guy, big masculine guy, you know, tutu sing Let It Go. That's my favorite way to go. So, right, it all falls under self-care. And we have the right not to have to work with anybody we don't want to. And you know, on the other hand, as a mediator, I feel like if I can help bring them down to earth and ground them a little bit and change the dynamic, great. But if I can't, you know, if they're back at that screaming, yelling place in 10 minutes, I've got no problem saying, "Maybe this isn't the right form for you. This is it." [Laughter] I don't think I can play because YouTube will then take down the video, but I'm just saying here's Channing Tatum is the name of the guy. Is this big masculine guy wearing the dress and the hair and lip-syncing to the song which is a you know a Disney princess song.

28:54 So anyhow that's my particular way to let it go. So okay I don't know that's just a little fun to talk about. And I'm a little too quick. Got one more minute. I'll tell you a quick funny Channing Tatum story. Yeah. So I'm mediating an easement dispute between two properties and he was a client of one of the properties. In fact, there were a studio and he would come and go and record there and things. And as he went there was a school next door and all the young girls would flock around his car and want autographs and he couldn't get to the place on time to do the recording and stuff. So, we started talking about how to fence that off and protect the talent who's coming through. And as we're doing this, what turned out to be a 14-hour mediation between these two properties with all the lawyers and title companies and everybody else involved, we started calling it the Channing Tatum easement because everybody knew what it meant. It was the, you know, the driveway for the purpose of protecting it. So, as shorthand, we had the Channing Tatum easement. It didn't get written out that way in the settlement agreement or recorded that way on the deed, I'm sure. But that's the effect he had on this dispute. I believe my do my wife was a high school girls high school girls school teacher and they would film nearby. It was on Beverly Boulevard. Occasionally different places would film and they'd see stars and the girls would go crazy for it. So I can imagine I don't have that problem but imagine Johnny D would have that problem. I you know another part about mediation I think that gets overlooked is sometimes it's not just your ability to resolve both parties but that the form of mediation is more efficient than the alternative which is the form of court and I deal with court all the time and the judge gets to a certain point says well you know I'm busy we'll reschedu this for you know three weeks till Monday or you know you only have a certain amount of time to deal with things doing things public is adds stress tension complexity and there's rules of what the court can see and can't see versus mediation where there are rules but they are maybe more

30:58 Efficient. So I imagine that's part of the solution is just a mediator not a not a mediator as opposed to what's the person who actually arbitrate you not as an arbitrator but as a mediator to help both sides come to a conclusion in a more efficient manner. Talk a little bit about your role in complex cases. I think we talked about one case in particular that you were sharing with me. Yeah, I call it my Yellowstone case. Because it's a massive tens of thousands of acres working cattle ranch. It's a whole ton of heirs like more than 10 siblings and they've been not getting along for years. And there are four trusts, four trustees. Five lawyers on the case and, more than half of the siblings are not represented by one of the lawyers. And so I've got parties representing themselves. I've got lawyers representing the parties. I have lawyers representing the trustees. There are two or three LLC's involved. It's a working cattle company. It's a residence. It's a ranch that and it's so complex and that what we did is we distilled it down into what the six or seven biggest conflicts were and we took sort of people from both sides and put together I call them tiger teams but they were they were teams that were three four people to work on a problem with representatives from each part of the waring family to get together and say what are we going to do about valuing the cattle and when to sell it what are we going do about figuring out the highest and best use of the ranch? Do we sell it? Do we subdivide it? Do we create a m mitigation bank out of it? How do we deal with mom's wishes?

32:48 And how do we deal with what's gone on and the trust and the money that's being spent since then? And you know, all that sort of stuff. But it was it's about figuring out where the pressure points are and then dealing with those each in an isolated way in an organized way and having everybody on board as we're going through each of those. And these teams came back with recommendations about you know the assessment of the market and talking to the appraisers says we should do this with the property and we should do this with the cattle and then they were able to sort of move forward because they had people who had disperate interests coming together to make a single recommendation back to the family and that made everybody feel comfortable because their interests were represented by some of the folks that were on that little committee making those decisions or recommendations. So it compartmentalizing is really helpful. Well, I think that matter just to have a hearing in court would take 20 minutes to introduce all the parties, right? I mean have that many people involved. They all have to be noticed. They all have to show up. Just noticing that matter you're talking about 20 30 parties is, you know, thousands of dollars of billable hours. And so taking it out of the realm of the court system and mediation is critical. Now, there are attorneys who are fine writing along and getting paid and billing along the way. But it takes somebody special, I think, to stand up and say, "Hey, we're never going to resolve this.

34:12 Let's find some alternative methodology." And again, arbitration is an option, but I think mediation is a is another option that I think has more potential. How can you share how you got involved in that case? What was the impetus? Because you have all these parties. It must have been one of them without letting on to the others. One of them must have said we need to go down this route. How did that happen? So one of the cousins who was not involved in this was a lawyer and had met me through the mediation world. I think he took a training class or was involved in a mediation that I had done a good job in. I think he thought so he recommended me to one of the heirs who recommended me to the others and the lawyers. So the lawyers called and this was fun. The lawyers called together and basically interviewed me. We they you know what's your background? What's your experience? This is the kind of case we have. How would you approach it? And what I said to them is I want to talk to every single one of the heirs individually one on-one. I want like an hour with each one of them. And those of them who are represented by you, I'll, you know, one lawyer represented three, another represented a few. I would meet with them with you. And the non-represented ones, I'll meet with them individually, but then I'm going to understand what everybody thinks is going on, what they want to see happen.

35:38 So, by the time we finally stepped into the first mediation, a, everybody knew me and had some trust with me at that point. B, I knew everybody and what they wanted and who was aligned with whom and who wanted what to happen and what outcomes they wanted and all of that. The lawyers and I developed a really nice rapport and had a way of working together that you know we could step out and in 10 minutes diagnose an issue and come back in and structure the conversation to hear from all the heirs about it and all of that. So, to me it's about frontloading that process and really doing my homework live, not just reading briefs and documents, which I do, but also meeting the people and understanding the people and having them have their chance to feel heard like we were talking about. So then when we sat down together at the end of the first all day mediation, one of the lawyers pulled me aside and said, "I've been working with this family 15 years. That's the single best discussion I've ever seen them have. I don't know how you got them to that point, but you know, they were actually talking with each other and planning together and things. And it comes from that. It comes from digging in deep early and letting everyone get to know me and me getting to know them. And judges don't have the time for that, you know. Plus, no, you know, I know we have judges, you know, right? I know we have judges who specialize, but still, how do you become a judge? Most of them are appointed because they come out of a prosecutor's office or a public defender's office or you know something on the criminal side and then they learn on the bench. So it's it I have advantages they don't have. I can ask questions they can't ask. I get time alone with people that helps me really understand the people to help me move the process forward. So I it I'm in a really gifted seat, you know. I really am. I get to dig in with people and become a part of it with them and become sort of the guide that takes this big river raft down the river with them. Well, also the process is different, right? I think sometimes it's just not even a

37:40 Matter of better or worse. It's just different. One process lends itself for certain types of disputes and arguments and the other one for others. You know, you can't you don't the authority of the judge. So even if you come to mediation agreement at best you can have a unified request to the court to use the authority of the court to go forward. You can't do that on their behalf. But on the flip side often times the court's asked to get involved in mediating or resolving matters that's not equipped to handle and the judges I see all the time say that I'm not really equipped to handle this. And we're either going to have a trial or you're going to need to find a mediator because all I can do is have a trial and all I can do is pit you against each other and make you fight it out and then want to win and want to lose. And you know, the other thing that strikes me is there's a I heard somebody recently talk about when they uncover fraud, the way they know it is the people who com like what they would do is cut off all the credit cards at a company and the people complained the most were they knew were the ones were fraudulent. Right? Somebody's on a company credit card and they're legitimate. You know, the company turns off the card and says, "Hey, we're going through accounting changes. They go along with it." But the criminal is the one who doesn't care about the relationship. They just want to burn the bridge if they have to. And it seems in your business as well, you're going to find out somebody because the mediation requires both parties to want to get to a settlement. It's require both parties to want to be fair or reasonable at some point. And also can't be about destroying the other party. You can't mediate if your goal is to destroy the other party. And if you flush out right away, hey, they just want to destroy you. They really nothing else matters, but your personal or financial destruction, good luck at least knowing that going into the trial.

39:19 Then you also start treating them that way rather than pretending as though there's any sense of fairness or reasonability along the way. You know, so many people believe in, you know, St. Peter at the pearly gates or karma or, you know, whatever that's where judgment is supposed to take place. That's where bad people are supposed to be punished, right? And they get sent to hell and whatever. And yet somehow you have one sibling who constantly just wants to make to punish the other one, right? Like it's their humanly duty to do that. And it you know sometimes people need reminding it's not you know I look at families like this and I think if there's a possibility that the way we go through this process would allow them to have Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner or something together as a family down the road that's priceless. So we can divide assets and assets are going to get divided one way or the other but how they go through the process and how they come out the other end and how much earth is scorched versus people going I never knew that about you. I didn't realize that you felt that way along the way and I don't mean to say touchyfey and we're not going to sit around and sing kumbaya. But if people can gain some mutual respect and let some of their guard down and work together to reach a resolution, then they can have a chance of having an ongoing relationship together. It's always better that way.

40:44 Look, Lee, we can go on for quite a while, but we have some limited time today. I know I booked you. I appreciate you being available today. Again, for those people who are interested, his contact information below. The mediation offices of Lee Jay Berman, [phone number]. You more information [email address]. You also can go to his website obviously mediationtools.com and get his resume. You can book an appointment with him as well. And we'll have the contact information below. Le thank you so much for taking time with us today. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. I conver you added to it. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. It was a lot of fun. I learned a lot. I think that the reason I do this podcast is I want to learn. So, hopefully people watching this find this helpful as well to that. And thanks again. And for the rest of you, look, this is the Probate Weekly podcast. Class. They do this every week. We interview most commonly attorneys, but also vendors to help us be more effective with our clients and get a better outcome and also learn the process better. You can continue the discussion on our Facebook group, which is Probate Weekly as well. Love to have you go there. If you like this episode, please like it, subscribe to it. You can go to probateweekly.com and sign up. Put your email address in. If you want to put your phone number in, sometimes I use text messages, not often, and you don't need to put your phone number if you're not comfortable, but that's how you register if you're going to get reminders, upcoming episodes, and specials. And there's way you can scroll down and we're available in all the audio formats, Spotify and Apple podcast as well as past episodes available on YouTube as well. You can click there to find them. I'm at Bill Gross Probate on social media. If I can help in any way, please reach out.

42:13 Again, like this if you like it. Give us comments how we can make it better. Subscribe if you like it. As always though, make today your best day ever. Thank you so much.