Is going to mediation a lot cheaper than going to trial?
The process to go to mediation is very similar to the process to proceed to trial. While the mediation occurs earlier than a trial date, and can be much less expensive, on the other hand, for a plaintiff to persuade the defendants to make meaningful contributions to a large enough settlement amount, the plaintiff may have to take a lot of litigation steps, including doing exhaustive document analysis and exchanging extensive expert reports. Remember, in order to invite maximum contribution from defendants at a mediation, you need to persuade them of the strength of your case, usually. Thus, the costs can still be quite high. The question to ask yourselves is, how do the estimated legal fees compare to the total cost to remediate the building.
