If a party tells you something that is going to blow up the mediation, what do you do?

I would suggest to them that they talk to the lawyer about that stuff because that has to do with their rights under the law and they need to know what their rights are or are not. I would encourage them, before we went into mediation, to talk to a lawyer about that information and see how they wanted to handle it.

With 30 years of experience in family law, Laura M. Urbik Kern is a certified mediator and family lawyer who concentrates on dissolution, family and juvenile law, child support, and complex domestic relations cases.