Why are inheritance disputes so well suited to mediation?

Inheritance disputes carry emotional weight that ordinary commercial cases do not — they often surface grief, old family rivalries, and questions of fairness that go well beyond the dollars involved. Litigation tends to intensify those wounds while draining the very estate the parties are fighting over, since legal fees come out of the assets in dispute. Mediation offers a confidential setting in which family members can address both the legal issues and the underlying grievances, with a neutral helping them separate emotion from the practical questions of distribution. It also allows creative resolutions a court cannot easily order — such as one heir keeping a family home while others receive offsetting assets — and it resolves matters far faster, preserving estate value.