The following is a paragraph I wrote this morning for my next article – ‘Mediation Advocacy in Trust & Estate Disputes – Part 1: Preparation.’ I am planning to complete the article and submit it to Trusts & Trustees (Oxford University Press) in March 2025. I will then write Part 2 – ‘Negotiation’, later in 2025. The extract from Part 1 is as follows:

‘In a trust/estate dispute value can be squandered because it is never identified. The opportunity for a mutually satisfactory trade exists in what the author calls the ‘Deal-Making Matrix’ (‘DMM’). The DMM is a mind-map (that can be sketched on a whiteboard), which graphically illustrates the dynamic interrelationship between what is of vital commercial interest to each P.

Thereby, what is of lesser strategic importance to each becomes apparent. Where e.g. each P attaches asymmetrical values to the same trust/estate assets, therein lies a potential trade. However, a potential trade cannot be forensically analysed and plotted with any accuracy before a mediated dialogue has commenced. That is because P.1’s pre-mediation analysis of the price he is willing to pay to do a deal can only be based upon untested assumptions about what P.2 is willing to accept.

So, during that early ‘preparation’ stage of the process, P’s calculation of the ‘price’ can only be provisional (i.e. a starting-point), as adjustments will need to be made during the mediated dialogue if it becomes apparent that P.1’s assumptions are erroneous. Thus, P.1 will need to re-calculate the price of doing a deal throughout the process as new information and insights emerge, and likewise, so will P.2.’

See also the Video on YouTube of my online talk to members of the Standing Conference of Mediation Advocates worldwide – ‘Mediation Advocacy in Trust and Estate Disputes’ (24.11.2024): https://lnkd.in/e787e7uF