My clients tell me the same thing before every mediation.

This is a waste of time. They will never agree to anything. This is a waste of money. Why are we even doing this.

I have heard it so many times I could say it for them. And I am still amazed, every single time, at how often a good mediator and two people who genuinely do not want to be in a courtroom prove all of that wrong by the end of the day.

Here is the part nobody walks in believing. In mediation, you get to decide.

In a Courtroom, the Judge Decides. In Mediation, You Do.

Say you want every Fourth of July with your kids. A judge will never give you that. A court alternates holidays. You get it this year, they get it next year, and that is just how it goes. Same with most everything else on the calendar.

Say you want every Black Friday because that is your shopping day, that is the day you and your kids have always gone out together. No judge in Shelby County is going to write that into an order. It is not the kind of thing a court even thinks about.

But in mediation, you can ask for it. You can bargain for it. You can trade something you care about less to get the thing you care about most. You can walk out with something a courtroom would never in a hundred years have handed you, because you are the one building the deal instead of waiting on a judge to build it for you.

That is the whole point. A judge gives you their best guess at fair. Mediation lets you define fair for your own family.

The Tradeoff Nobody Likes But Everybody Lives With

Now here is the catch, and I am not going to dress it up. Nobody walks out of a mediation with their best case scenario. Nobody.

If you came in expecting to get everything you wanted, mediation is going to disappoint you. That is not how it works. Both sides give. Both sides bend. Both sides leave a little less than happy.

But both sides also leave with something they can live with. And that, more than anything else I can tell you, is how cases actually settle. Not with a winner and a loser. With two people who each gave up something to get the things that mattered most to them.

I have watched clients who swore they would never agree to a single thing sign an agreement they helped write, walk out, and tell me they were glad they did not roll the dice in front of a judge.

What Mediation Actually Looks Like

A lot of folks picture mediation as the two of them stuck at one table glaring at each other while somebody referees. It does not have to look like that at all. In the mediations I take my clients to, the parties sit in separate rooms. You and I are in one room. The other side and their lawyer are in another. The mediator walks between us carrying offers back and forth. People call it shuttle mediation.

You do not have to look at them. You do not have to hear them. You sit with me, we talk through every offer, and you decide what to send back. It is confidential, and what gets said in there generally cannot be used against you in court if the case does not settle.

Tennessee courts order most family cases to mediation before they will set a contested hearing anyway. So you are very likely going to end up in one of these rooms whether you planned on it or not. You may as well walk in knowing what it can do for you. As your attorney, I would rather you understand the leverage you are holding before we sit down, not after.

Lawyer Bill’s Advice

A judge will give you fair. Mediation lets you build something better than fair for your own family.

You will not get everything. Neither will they. That is the deal.

But you get to choose. You get to bargain. You get the Fourth of July a courtroom would never hand you.

Stop asking whether you will win. Start asking what you can live with.

That is the question that settles cases.

The goal is to walk out with an agreement, not a victory.

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About the Author: William W. Jones IV is a Memphis family law attorney, Rule 31 Listed Family Mediator, and Super Lawyers selectee every consecutive year from 2014 through 2025. Licensed in Tennessee (BPR 022869) and Mississippi (BPR 100707), he practices at The Jones Law Firm, 5100 Poplar Ave, Suite 708, Memphis, TN 38137. Call (901) 761-5353 or visit midsouthdivorce.com.