Robert C. Mueller, ESQ.  |  Phone: 443.994.7266

Robert C. Mueller, ESQ.  |  Phone: 443.994.7266
217 Upper Mill Court Centreville, MD 21617

217 Upper Mill Court Centreville, MD 21617

How long does the average mediation take to resolve a dispute?

Unfortunately, there is no “average” mediation because there is no average dispute – each one is different from the others. In a divorce case, for instance, the participants may want to reach agreement on a parenting plan, various financial issues, and distribution of real and household property. While such a full-range divorce mediation can be anticipated to require four to six 2-hour mediation sessions, it could take less time where the participants are especially cooperative with each other – or it could take longer where they are especially difficult with each other or where there are unusual underlying matters that need to be resolved. And, of course, some divorcing participants do not want or need to mediate the full range of issues (e.g., where there are no children, or where they have a simple financial picture that they already have resolved). Other types of civil disputes or real estate disputes, for instance, often are resolved in one or two 2-hour sessions, but sometimes more is necessary.