Marc Fleisher

It's a classic mediation vignette. The wife wants to have her husband's business appraised and brings it up in mediation. The husband has a reaction. Not necessarily an angry one, mind you. Perhaps a plaintive,"Don't you trust me to tell you what it is worth?" Or a softly-spoken threat: "If you go down that route, then we might as well litigate". As the mediator, I note that she of course has the right to an appraisal. And I acknowledge his concerns. I also suggest an intermediate step of having an appraiser attend a mediation session to talk about the appraisal process and answer questions and concerns they may have. But at the end of the day the Wife, more often than not, backs down. Had there been collaborative lawyers in the room, then it wouldn't be completely on her shoulders and it wouldn't feel quite so personal.