KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Navigating California Mediation and Arbitration Real Estate Clauses

Episode Date: July 16, 2026

Summary:Host Bill interviews Southern California attorney Nathan Hoffman to clarify how mediation and arbitration function in California real estate and probate scenarios. Real estate agents will learn that while checking the mediation box on California Association of Realtors (C.A.R.) forms makes it a required step, its primary tooth is enforcing the preservation of attorney's fee recovery in later litigation. The episode highlights how court-ordered mediation acts as an economical way to settle highly emotional trust disputes outside of trial.

As a real estate agent in California, on literally every single transaction, there is a box for mediation and arbitration. And we're all trained by our brokers almost always to, by default, check yes. And explaining to customers these alternatives are to protect them and protect us. What does it really mean? And then there's a whole other world of mediation arbitration when you get into probate and trust administration. We're lucky to have here today. Man who's loaded on hundreds of meditations, I think, in arbitrations as well, attorney, local here in Southern California, Nathan Hoffman,

attorney and media. Thank you for joining us again, Nathan. Oh, hey, good. And thank you, Bill, for hosting me today. So obviously, there's a little bit of distinction between mediation. Let's talk about first mediation versus arbitration. Mediation in a real estate transaction, which I believe is mandatory, not mandatory, but if you check the box,

it becomes mandatory as a means of resolving the process, he's a step. Mediation in real estate transactions versus mediation and probate transactions. What's the difference there? Well, honestly, the difference is contract. So CAR has a form that almost every real estate agent and broker use in a transaction. And uniformly, in my experience, that box is checked off. And what it does is it mandates that the parties go through a mediation.

And we'll talk about what mediation is versus arbitration, but go through a mediation if there's a dispute between the buyer and seller as a requirement if, if, if, if they later go into litigation and want to recover attorney's fees. So if you don't participate in pre-litigation mediation and the box is checked off, you lose your right to recover attorney's fees in most circumstances. That's under the CAR form agreement. So just to clarify, because I'm also, I have to repeat it. So I make sure I understand this. So if it is checked, it doesn't mean they have to go to mediation before. filing litigation. It means that they'd have to go to mediation before filing if part of their

award or part of the damage they want is have their attorney's fees reimbursed. You have to be an idiot, not to go through the mediation, which in most circumstances is no cost to the parties because CAR has mediators who will hear mediations without cost to the parties. Maybe you get it resolved. That's a great revolt if the party's going to resolve it at that early stage. And they get their dispute finished and completed. But if they don't, they at least preserve their right if they go ahead and file ordinary civil litigation for whatever claims they have, breach of the agreement, failure to disclose, all of the various kinds of theories that can be explained. And the prevailing party in that litigation can then seek recovery of attorney's fees in their post-award, post-judgment proceeding with the court. or even if they go later to binding arbitration, because what can happen and does happen in many circumstances is the parties will file a lawsuit.

They'll realize that the lawsuit's going to take them years and lots of expense and trouble in the court. And then they agree to go to binding arbitration. Well, the arbitrator is going to be bound by the same rules and contracts that the parties entered into, and that arbitrator will have the ability as part of his or her award to consider the award of attorney's fees. if they went through the pre-filing mediation process. So in other words, if you're going to be in a dispute that is subject to a CAR contract, do your pre-filing mediation. It can always have to be it.

Yeah, it's not like one of the benefits. I will say full disclosure. I've done hundreds of the transactions as a CAR member. I've never once had litigation filed against me or had a need for mediation. I've been a witness in a couple matters that were mediated, but that's a different process. So, okay, so that's mediation and a real estate transaction. And let's talk about arbitration, meaning imagine that either the mediation didn't work or they skipped that. What happens if they don't go to mandatory arbitration and they instead file litigation?

Do they have cause to do that? Do they allow to do that? What's that look like? Again, in a real estate transaction, not in a probate. So I'd have to look at any specific agreement to see what the parties agreed to. typically they don't agree to arbitration in the CAR agreements. It's an option, but I don't see that often. Oh.

So look, look, we should step back for a minute. The difference between mediation and arbitration, they're both defined in the California codes, in the evidence code and the California Code of Civil Procedure. In a very simplistic explanation, mediation is a private meeting between the parties. to see if they can resolve their issues with the help of someone who is experienced in helping parties resolve their disputes, the mediator. Arbitration is a substitute for formal litigation in the courtroom, and the parties can agree and stipulate to arbitration, and the difference is the arbitrator is actually hearing evidence and making a decision and an award, where in mediation,

The mediator is not making any decisions, is not making any award, but is facilitating conversation and discussion between the parties to bring them to a voluntary agreement. It's a very significant difference between the two procedures, totally different outcomes. Very different. Arbitration is formal, not quite as formal as being in a courtroom before a judge, but it's typically a lot faster. It typically is more economically appropriate. You are paying the arbitrator, you're not paying a judge, but it goes along typically much faster, you get it done faster, and once there's an award, that award can be turned into an enforceable judgment if that becomes necessary. A lot of words, but that's the main differences between

those two procedures. Well, as one of my mentors taught me early on, you know, you get paid for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We get paid for the words, those words are important. So all that we talk about so far as the context of a standard, maybe real estate transaction, maybe it's somewhat similar in the civil litigation. But now let's move to the probate side where, you know, my thinking always is, and I don't know that I know the answer legally, but from a business point of view, the last person we have a dispute with is a probate estate, unless you have clear grounds, because they're already in court, like they're already in front of a judge. They're already have a relationship, perhaps, with a judge. So let's talk about when you have mediation.

oftentimes I find when there's litigation, there's arguments, objections to who gets how much on a probate, seems to me there's a mandatory mediation meeting that the judge kind of forces, and there's different formats of that. But that's with the judge, I believe. No, it's not with the judge. Okay, so there's mediation, different formats, and there's private mediators to handle these cases? So California's unique, obviously, and lots of things that we do. Imagine that.

Under the probate code and how it's been interpreted and case law where decisions have been made and published, in California, the probate judges, whether it's a probate case or a trust case, particularly, especially in trust cases, have the ability and the authority to order the parties to mediation. Mediation is not done by the court normally. It is done either by a free panel, like in Los Angeles Superior Court, there are. are those of us who have volunteered our time at no cost to the parties to help mediate their matters. There are also private mediators, myself included, where we are hired by the parties to help mediate a case. And there are mediation services, companies that have panelists who the parties can agree to to mediate their cases. So in Los Angeles, in California, the probate Judges, trust judges, have the ability under the probate code and case law to order the parties to mediation.

We get into an issue about who has to pay the mediator's fee if it's going to private mediation versus the free panel. Typically, if it involves a trust, the judge will issue an order that the trust initially pay for the cost of the mediation. Sometimes both parties, it depends uniquely on the case. And in California, in 2021, things became good. particularly focused on mediation with the Breslin case, B-R-E-S-L-I-N, where the California courts confirmed the authority of the probate and trust judges to order people to mediation, and particularly there's a notice requirement so that parties get notice, and without going into the detail of that case, it's particularly significant because the judge can order the parties

to mediation, to give notice under the way in which the case requires that notice to be given to anybody who's interested. And then if the matter goes to mediation and the parties agree to a settlement, which ultimately is approved by the court, if there was a party that didn't attend the mediation and didn't participate, even though they had the requisite statutory notice, they can be bound by that mediation agreement. So it's become a huge tool, and I will tell you in almost every case I've been in for years, probate and trust judges at the appropriate time

will order the parties to mediation because they want the cases resolved. They don't want to have to make decisions. They don't want to have to have a trial. There are occasions where cases go to trial. But the vast majority of the cases are settled by the parties either among themselves or by way of mediation. Very, very, very common, at least in the courts that I'm used to being in,

which are Los Angeles, Ventura, and San Diego, Orange County. Now, if parties agree to mediate before it gets to litigation, maybe there's a dispute and, you know, before we file or maybe there's a filing and that one of the choice says, hey, let's see about getting a mediator, see if we can't resolve this offshore. Does that then satisfy the judges? Is a judge still going to maybe require an additional mediation stage? Or both parties show up and both participate and they just can't agree with terms.

The judge can say, okay, well, you met that step. We're not going to slow you down now or penalize you for that. We're going to move your case forward. Well, okay, so let's take your question step by step. There is no requirement that there be a filing in any California court for there to be mediation. I probably handle 10 to 15 percent of trust and probate mediations that have not been filed. in court. So the parties have a dispute. They come to me, hire me as their mediator. We do a mediation. In every mediation that I handle, the parties will sign an enforceable mediation settlement agreement.

So the terms are very clear about what they are. There's no court required. Unless there ends up being a dispute afterwards, somebody can file a trust petition. Sure. And then the other side's going to tell the court, we already had a mediation. We already had an agreement, Judge, I want you to enforce it. You get into that battle. Now, once a case is filed, if there's no pre-filing mediation, the parties can go to mediation with or without a court order. There's no requirement of a court order. But in most circumstances, once a trust or probate matter is before the court and all of the proper paperwork has been filed and there's a dispute, it's a disputed matter. The courts, at least in our Southern California,

California counties are going to very likely order you to go to mediation, either to the free panel that the courts provide or to paid mediation. The difference primarily is you get a lot more attention and a lot more time when you hire a mediator to help you through the process than if you use the panel. But I did hundreds of the free panel ones and settled most of those cases. So they're both equally important. They both end up at the same end. you sign an enforceable agreement, and that becomes what the court's going to enforce.

I imagine a mediation that when parties get together, they may have multiple errors of disagreement, five or ten points of contention, and while the mediation may not be completely solve all the issues, you can make progress if you've got three or five or seven or ten things resolved. Now you've narrowed what the argument is, and not only does that, I would imagine, reduce the cost and time of litigation, but perhaps later they'll settle on the other three items or more likely to, they're very settled on something. Is that kind of the case, or do you really need to kind of resolve the whole case with one settlement?

Well, as the mediator, I want to resolve the entire case. The point of the best point of the mediation is to take the parties who are far apart, they work with them, and come to an agreement and end their dispute. So both sides are done. They know what their agreements are. money gets distributed, property gets distributed, whatever the issues are usually multiple issues and be done. Alternatively, if you can't get the whole case resolved, yes, of course, Bill,

you do want to bring the parties to whatever agreement they can reach. Now, I've certainly had circumstances. You don't like it, but you deal with it, where we've gone through a session, we've resolved issues A, B, and E, but C and D and F don't get resolved. and then we set up maybe a second session or a later session. Once the parties do some more discovery, if that becomes necessary, or they just cool down and think about it, or they go talk to a family member about it. I mean, there's lots of dynamics in the prost and probate

that are different than just an ordinary civil real estate issue that are a little bit more complex. It also seems to me, I've seen enough cases where once the parties get together and agree on anything, they kind of come off for the, they let the guard down a little bit. You know, it's not as aggressive. And then later they end up agreeing on a couple of them. I've had it happen where, well, I thought you guys were still arguing over this.

No, no, we decided this and that. We gave them this. They gave us that. And that was like months after the mediation agreement of the amount of things. So imagine it's really about getting people just to communicate and to let down the guard a little bit. Yeah, well, I follow up. So if I have a mediation and we've got. got five issues and three of them get resolved and two don't.

I'll let the parties cool off for a few days and then I'll call the lawyers and say, okay, look, this is where we were. Look, let's the three of us, four of us, five of us get together and talk a little bit about how we can manage these last two issues so we can get the whole thing done. And most often it works. I don't let go. I want the cases to get settled and they get settled in 95% of it. percent of the time, usually. I've had very few cases that don't ultimately resolve. And I don't

think that's atypical for good mediators who are really interested in trying to help out with parties. Sometimes you need a little cooling off period. Or sometimes a party doesn't understand an issue and needs an explanation by his or her lawyer. Or sometimes they have to do some research. They don't know the value of that particular item versus a different item. So whatever the circumstances are, a good mediator doesn't just come in and, and, you know, okay, it's 430 and we're done. Sorry, guys, goodbye. You can't do it. And this is really the difference between, this is not going to sound good for my friend, judges,

but judge mediators tend to judge. Attorney mediators tend to mediate more. That's right. But that's not true for all. There's a really, really, really good retired judge mediators. by far. But judges are judges and they're used to hearing matters and making decisions where lawyer mediators, we don't make decisions. We facilitate the parties. And that's the point of mediation to facilitate and work with the parties to come up with a plan that all sides can

agree to and end their dispute economically and quickly and in a timely fashion. And make sure you have a writing that's signed by everybody so it's enforceable because under the California codes, a signed written mediation agreement can be enforced by the point, if necessary. I'm certainly not a judge and attorney, but I often try to get up to speed on what's happening on cases. And oftentimes I find it's two different disagreements on fine points of the law. You know, there's an argument, this one's more important than that. The other attorney saying, no, this one's more important than that one is. And, you know, I look at that, say, well, that's what we have judges for.

They're judges to fill in the blanks maybe on the law or to help put some color to it or take the fact. They're only going over the facts of the case, then the judges has to see the evidence and make that decision. But sometimes I find that one attorney is telling their client, the sky is red. The other one's telling the sky is blue. And I just want to say to the attorney,

the sky is blue. Why are you telling you that it's red? And, you know, I imagine as an attorney, when you make that, now that maybe a judge is the one who makes those more impactful. But I imagine you as attorney also can look at this and say to your colleague, the attorney, hey, the sky is blue. what you're doing here. Are the case like that, they're just that obvious where there's a fact that somebody's just insisting on arguing over and they just miss it and then you point out to

them? What's that? So the dynamics of mediation are you put parties in different rooms, whether it's done in person or by Zoom. Doesn't really matter. They go into different rooms. And so you'll go into room number one and say, tell me your story. Here's who I am as the mediator. Let's hear a little bit about you. You go into room two. You do the same thing with the other party or room three. And then at times, you pull out people where I might have both lawyers together in a room with me and we're talking about an issue. And then I might have a time where I'm with lawyer one and lawyer two and then lawyer three. And you say to a lawyer after you get into the process and you get into the issues you're talking about, okay, come on. I know that you want to make sure your

client thinks that you're there strongly to argue and advocate for his or her part. Let's talk about why we're here. We're here to find a way to resolve the dispute. So you've got to get off that point and let's kind of deal with it, massage it a little bit of you have to. Let me explain if necessary how these things can be looked at in different ways. And you do that and you go back and forth and you meet with parties and lawyers separately, pull them out, bring them in. Clients, the individual parties sometimes don't understand when I'm meeting with the lawyers only and not with them. They get a little anxious. Why are the three of the three? of them talking, you know, or the four of them talking. And then I go back and I explain to the

parties, look, you know, we weren't excluding you, but my job was to try to bring people together. I needed to kind of discuss some of these issues with the lawyers, get everybody to understand, even if we can't agree, to understand what the differences are. Now put that aside and let's find out of the way. And, you know, nine times out of ten, these cases are about money. You know, I want a million dollars and you only want to give me $100,000 and I'm, you know, beneficiary number two. How am I going to get to my million versus the hundred? And so you talk about why, what the issues are and move that along. And, you know, ordinarily we get it done.

It just takes time. It takes understanding. And frankly, in mediation, the parties for the very first time get to talk to somebody other than their own lawyer. their case. So they hear things maybe that they haven't heard from the other side. Yes. They find out that there's maybe perhaps more than one way in which a judge, if a judge was going to hear this matter, how she might decide. So these are all many times new to people, and we forget because we're in the courtroom all the time,

the clients aren't, thankfully. I also think, I'm just kind of curious, just my observation, that sometimes the challenges are the attorney is maybe very experienced in one area of the law, not as much the other. More commonly, might be a very experienced civil litigator, but not experienced in probate litigation specifically. And I know there's some differences in procedures and processes, certainly different judges. You're in different courtrooms for the most part.

And I often find sometimes the probate attorney will prevail because the civil attorney has something that's correct in civil court that doesn't really work that way in probate court. Now, you have an extensive background in probate specifically. So imagine that makes you much more suitable county for mediation than probate and trust matters. Well, for the first 20 years of my practice, I was a civil litigator doing a lot of construction and real estate litigation. Oh, I know what that world's like. And then I flipped over and became a probate and trust litigator 2002, 2003. I started basically.

Huge difference. And probate lawyers and judges, especially when we're, at a gathering not formally, we will joke about the fact that civil litigators don't know what they're doing in our courtrooms. Probate and trust is it's very, very different. Right. And the rules are different. The attitudes of the judges are different. But my role as a mediator, if I'm in that role, is to educate everybody who's there. And you don't get anywhere by being demeaning or in any way destructive. If you've got a civil, litigator in a trust matter who maybe really doesn't understand the nuances and the rules of our

case, doesn't know about Breslin, doesn't know about a lot of these things. You take the time to educate them a little bit. You know, hey, look, this is, you need to look at this case or this code section because it's directly relevant. And you don't do that in front of their client. You do not want to embarrass a lawyer in front of his or her client. He's in private conversations if they become necessary. But on a day-to-day basis in the courtrooms, yeah, we know who civil litigators are versus trust of probate litigators. And there are really, really good civil litigators. By no means am I, you know, having any difficulty with those folks. But, you know, if you put me in a federal courtroom and want me to argue a copyright case, I'm really not the right

lawyer to do that. It's a different world. Yeah. I mean, I see that. I've seen, you know, really impressive looking attorneys and sounding attorneys and walk in really nice suits from very impressive firms and the attorney would talk about the probate notes and we're talking about and like the basic probate attorney knows about the probate notes stuff so I would think that you know like most businesses your success is a combination of the technical legal skills knowledge experience knowing the law and the soft skills communication being able to listen being patient, letting people, you know, a van, even when they act inappropriately. So you obviously have to balance that to some degree. And I know within the world of mediation, there are mediators

who kind of lean on one or the other. There are medeers who really advocate their trial expertise, their legal knowledge expertise. Are the ones that talk more about, you know, getting people together and finding solutions. So on that spectrum, where do you find your practice and where do you find your strength? And what are people you looking for when they come to you that they're able to get? The best mediators are those that have all those skills you just described. So you can find somebody who has extensive real trial experience who's been in front of a courtroom, at front of a judge,

or even a jury, even though we don't have juries, obviously, in probate and trust, but who understand those issues. And then either through experience or personality, learn to moderate and not advocate their positions. So as a mediator, you don't really want to advocate a position. You want to find the strengths and the weaknesses in cases and explain those to the parties. There are times, absolutely, where advocacy skills become important. When you have a client, a party, or a lawyer who is spending too much time arguing and not listening,

sometimes a little forcefulness becomes appropriate. I don't like to be that way, but you've got to have the skill set to employ it when necessary. You know, the most important aspect of being a mediator, I think, is knowing the law, understanding it so that you can articulate it to the parties who don't have that experience, perhaps educate lawyers who may not have that experience, like you said. And then you have to be empathetic. You've got to understand that emotions, particularly in trust in the state cases. There's a lot of emotion involved.

You know, we joke around all the time. People ask me, how do you describe trust and probate? That's family law after death. All the same problems that people have in their family law disputes are involved in the probate and trust disputes and it rolls over. So you need to understand all of it and experience it. And I think you have to be pliable enough to understand in some cases your role is to really listen and explain to people and educate them. In some circumstances, you begin to nudge a little more

and begin to say, no, you're not looking at this correctly. Let me give you some reasons and explanations. And on very rare occasions, you might even employ, hey, look, I've been in the courtroom for a very long time. I know what the judge is going to do here, and you are not going to win on that argument. That usually comes much later in the day. You know, you start off meeting people, explaining to them who you are, where you are, and what you're about, and listening to them and who they are and what they're about. And hopefully you've got good lawyers who are there also who are not puffing their chest, but rather looking out for the best interests of their clients to bring them the resolution and end their case and be done.

One of the things I know that drives clients crazy unreasonably so is that, you know, we hire an attorney because we've been wronged and the other side has an attorney. We hate that attorney because we hate that person. We go to court and we either, you know, we win less than we should or we lose and we hate the party. Attorney shake hands and, hey, let's go play golf next week. And sure what, do you like, hey, that guy just ripped me off for all this money. And yet, you know, one of the things that's interesting when you go to court regularly is you find that there's a certain collegiality amongst attorneys. There's a kind of a small community. And I imagine your business is coming from, attorneys in many cases that you, you know, were on the other side of a matter, and they came

to respect and appreciate your knowledge, and now they need to mediate you, they're going to bring you in. So how do you manage between the confrontation versus the relationships? There's a huge difference between arbitration and mediation in terms of the disclosures that you have to make. As an arbitrator, there are very strict disclosures about your relationships and your history with other parties and other lawyers. In mediation, not so much. But I don't hide anything either. So I let the parties know if I know the lawyers. I may not start off my initial, hello, how are you?

I know you're a lawyer and I hate the other side. I mean, that never happens. But I will in the course of a mediation certainly explain who I know. And I have to tell you, in almost every circumstance, the lawyers are all really good lawyers. They're different, obviously. some I know better than others. But the same thing is true when I go to mediation

on behalf of one of my clients. I know most of the mediators out there and they know me. They either know me because we're on the same side or opposite sides or both in litigation or because I've used them as a mediator. There's one retired judge

who I had probably used more than 10 times as a mediator because he's very effective and he really does a great. great job in getting matters done and completed. And I tell my client, I know this mediator really well. I knew him when he was on the bench. I've known him as a mediator. And I trust it. That doesn't mean that you're going to get any special treatment because the mediator's role is still going to be the same. How can I understand the dispute? How can I bring these parties together? How can I get them to sign

a mediation settlement agreement so their dispute is over and done with, which is the goal of any really good medicated mediator. That's what you want to do. You were hired to help bring the case the matter of the dispute to an end, and you want to be able to do that ethically in a way that the parties could agree to. And I feel like it would be such a compliment if one of the attorneys knows you through trial and or mediation, and the other one doesn't. What it means is the one who knows you presented you in a way that has to be truthful and honest and disclosed. Otherwise, it can't be He's a stranger. Oh, Nathan Hoppin sounds a good name. It'd have to be, I've seen this guy before, or I've worked with him, or is on a case with him or against him. I think he's good, or two others

are good. And I imagine that the other side has to take that and be able to research you and say, okay, yeah, he seems like he'd be fair, if they don't have any pressure. How does that get managed? So again, arbitration versus mediation are different. Arbitration has statutory requirements for the information that must be disclosed in advance of anybody agreeing and performing an arbitration. Mediation doesn't have the same strict requirements. You don't have to be a lawyer to be a mediator. You can be a non-lawyer mediator. You don't have to be licensed to be a mediator.

I mean, look, if you go back to the history of mediation, which is thousands of years old, by the way, it was tribal leaders. It was religious leaders. And still is today. Many of our modern religions have procedures where you can go into. your church or synagogue or temple or whatever it is, and somebody there will help you mediate a dispute if they want to. And as long as the written agreement is conforms with the law, that mediation agreement is just as binding as one that's done before a lawyer or a former judge.

So, you know, you leave it to the mediator to decide how much he or she is going to disclose to all of the parties. typically when I was the lawyer in a mediation, I'd always ask the mediator, how do you know the other side? What's your relationship with the other side? Just because I may not know you. So I just want to know going in. And it does not, in my opinion, discourage me if I find out that that mediator has mediated eight or ten cases with the lawyer on the other side because they were successful. Great.

I know that this mediator has accomplished a mediated settlement with this other lawyer. So it's kind of a heads up. This other lawyer is one who will mediate and reach an agreement. The mediator, remember, the mediator can't force anything. And there's a mediation privilege in California, which means when that mediation ends, if it doesn't reach an agreement, nothing said or done during the mediation is admissible in any way or format in the courtroom. The judge is sitting there doesn't want it. hear it, can't hear it by statute. The only thing that that judge is going to hear is there's a

signed mediation agreement. Otherwise, it's irrelevant in the pending case. So I don't have a problem with a mediator knowing of one or more of the lawyers. So what. And I imagine this and also, again, if they're bringing the case to you, it's because they maybe call you head time and ask you some questions and they feel comfortable. And the fact, the other guy knew you and you did of the mediation with him is a sign that you're effective with that other attorney. Gee, I find it to be difficult to work with. You were able to mediate with him many times. Good for you.

Let's worry that I can see. Yeah, I never looked at that way, but now that I see it, it's not that he got success necessarily at the expense of the other parties. It's that he got that attorney at least to a mutually agreed upon solution. I have what we call premediation conferences with the lawyers all the time. Lawyer A will call me and say, are you available to mediate this case? Do you have any reasons? You know, here are the parties?

their lawyers, is there any reason why you can't mediate? No, I'm available. All right, let me now speak with the other lawyer on the other side, who doesn't know me, who didn't pick me, who just has been told I'm available. We'll talk, but I'll say, here's my background, here's my experience. If I know the other lawyer, I'll say, yeah, we had a mediation six months ago and we got it resolved or not, whatever the case may be. And then, you know, the reality is all the parties have to agree, if one or more

say no, there isn't going to be a mediation in almost any circumstance because you want all the parties there. I mean, there's always a possibility that two out of three parties might want to reach an agreement between them without party number three. That can be done. It's very rare, but I guess it's possible theoretically. So as the mediator, I speak with all of the parties and give them my background, my experience. If they ask who I know, who I don't know, have I ever been in mediation with one of the parties or the lawyers before? I don't have anything to hide because I don't think it's relevant to whether or not

I can mediate a case. Well, look, I've got a little over time here. It's a fascinating subject. Obviously, there's a lot more to go on in mediation, both in real estate as a broker and in probate. And we've probably been touched arbitration much, so hopefully we'll get a future episode with you, maybe go into details in arbitration.

Thank you for your time day. We have Nathan Hoffman, the Hoffman Law Group. There we go. There's a fancy panel we have there. The Hoffmanlawfirm.com, the Hoffmanlawfirm.com. And the now below is this contact information. Phone number 818, 710, 619. If you're listening, can't write that down.

Reach out to me, but we're more glad to make the introduction. Nathan, thank you so much your time today. Appreciate so much learning about, in general, just the practice of law in probate and more importantly on mediation. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. My pleasure, and if you want to get in depth on these subjects later, just let me know and we'll work on some special programming. I'm sure we will. Thank you. Thank you so much.

And for the rest of the rest of the Post, this is Probate Weekly. We get together every week and talk to probate attorneys, litigators, administrators, vendors, in this case, kind of both. He does probate administration and trust administration and law as well as mediation and arbitration. I thought it was really interesting. Hope you found it that way. Let me know. You like it, didn't like it, like this, subscribe. Send me a comment at Bill Gross Probate and Social Media. as always make today your best day ever.

Thank you so much.