Mediation Center of Santa Cruz

Chip Rose

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550 Water Street, Ste. J3
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Phone: (831) 429-9721



You Should Get A Good Lawyer..  |  But There Is No Trust...
The Most Common Questions

 

“How can I possibly work with someone I no longer trust…”
 
When any marriage relationship comes to an end for one or both of the parties, the issue of trust ranges from damaged, at one end of the spectrum, to destroyed, at the other. As a result, it is natural for any person to question the concept of working together regarding such critical issues as one’s future, family, and finances. However, the converse of working together is working apart. It is the nature of the legal system that when a couple chooses to work in isolation from one another, the relationship becomes increasingly adversarial. 
 
It is well understood that litigation is a competitive negotiating system. The outcome goals become simplistic and the parties end up engaged in attack-and-defend strategies to see who can prevail over the other. Upon simple reflection, one should ask: In what other part of one’s life does this approach bring about the most favorable result? 
 
It is well understood that litigation is a competitive negotiating system. The outcome goals become simplistic and the parties end up engaged in attack-and-defend strategies to see who can prevail over the other. Upon simple reflection, one should ask: In what other part of one’s life does this approach bring about the most favorable result?  
 

 What is true is that the competitive mode of litigation only serves to increase the impact of mistrust and to ensure that damaging consequences result from the decision to litigate which was driven by the lack of trust.

No one can do anything for anyone about relationship trust. Once it is damaged, it may never be repaired. What can be done in an effective divorce process is to identify a new type of trust—process trust.  The simple fact is that the only people who can create process trust are the clients themselves.   Process trust is defined very simply: If you keep the agreements you make during mediation, then the other party can come to trust those agreements, and by extension, the “untrustworthy” client’s participation in the process.

Why would clients keep their agreements in mediation? Because direct, structured negotiations between the clients, under the supervision and assistance of the mediator, offers the clients the best opportunity to come up with the most beneficial and satisfying agreement that is possible between them. 

Why would the other party choose to keep agreements?

I always advise client coming into mediation that it is entirely appropriate to look out for one’s self-interest. The reality is that each of us will work to our own perceived self-interest whether we are given permission or not.

What is not so well understood, however, is the fact that neither party to a negotiation can maximize his/her own self-interest unless the other party is also able to achieve the same. The math is simple. 

When clients look to the law and lawyers to protect them, they are defaulting into a system that does not have “their best possible outcome” as its goal.  Simply put, the “law” is a set of rules that provide adjudications on individual issues. Nowhere does the law attempt to package all the issues in a case into a predictable outcome. When clients go to court, they surrender control over not just the individual issues, but the collective outcome as well. Faced with this reality, it is very much in each client’s interest to not do anything to destroy the process trust of mediation. 

For more information, contact us at 831-429-9721 and ask for Lucy Gowan ♦

 
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