This week I have had a series of emails from the Grand
Parent of a student I am mentoring. He has been in dispute with my “client” for
some months now and both parties were keen to seek help from outside the
family. The only reason that I agreed to get involved was that the vast
majority of the facts were not in dispute. The conflict between them seemed to
revolve around why things had happened rather than what things had happened.
Give me a “why” rather than a “what” dispute every time!
The Grand Parent was articulate, educated and wealthy – and most
unpleasant to work with! Common sense and compassion didn’t seem to have been
included in his character: neither did even the smallest fragment of empathy
with either his grand daughter or with me as the mediator. His starting (and
finishing) point seemed to be that both she and I had to accept everything he had
said or done was 100% reasonable. If we dared to venture any opinion that
differed from his we were either being “unprofessional” (me) or “disrespectful”
(her).
He didn’t give any ground on any issue and it was hard to
understand why he had signed up for mediation. Only once before have I ever had
to work with a person so totally uncommitted to the process and in the end I
had to share this opinion with him.
Sadly, I now think the matter will have to go to Court. I
think the facts speak for themselves and that he has diverted substantial sums
of money from his daughter’s estate into his own pocket to the substantial
detriment of his grand daughter.
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