Tried mediation to save money and ended up paying twice as much...

My ex and I thought we'd be civil enough to skip lawyers and just use a mediator in Chicago. $300 an hour seemed reasonable until we spent 8 sessions arguing over who got the dining room table. By the time we gave up and hired attorneys, we had blown through $2,400 on a mediator who couldn't even get us to agree on splitting the dog. Has anyone else had mediation backfire like that?

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pat_roberts551mo ago

People always think they can beat the system until they actually have to live through it. This is like when I see neighbors try to seal their own driveways with a $30 can of tar from the hardware store, then two months later they're paying a crew $500 to fix the mess they made. Everyone wants to save a buck upfront but ends up spending more in the long run because they didn't know what they were getting into.

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bailey.jennifer1mo ago

Yeah, I read that splitting a dog in mediation is actually harder than splitting money cause dogs can't be owned by two people.

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