How to Prepare for a Dispute Resolution Hearing

Once a long and difficult legal battle is looking like it might finally be behind you, it’s easy to celebrate prematurely. When you have a dispute resolution hearing on the horizon, though, you might need your bearings more than ever before. These can often involve delicate matters for all involved, and if you’re the professional that they’ve entrusted to deliver a positive result, you need all the tools at your disposal to make good on that.

So, going over some final preparations can not only help that to be the case, but can also give you the confidence you need to put your best foot forward.

The Tools at Your Disposal

You can be as prepared as you can possibly be, but that doesn’t mean that you have everything that you need for this to go in your favor. You’ll want to cover every angle and have contingencies in place to avoid getting caught off-guard. To that end, being aware of the kind of tools that are going to be useful in your industry means that you’re armed with what your opponents might be as well. TrialView is an AI-powered tool that helps litigators like you to have a more comprehensive overview of everything that you need to be prepared. This isn’t something that functions as a replacement of your own skills or preparations, but something that can allow you to have more confidence in the approach that you want to take.

Talk to Your Clients

It’s easy to get so focused on the task at hand that you forget about the human angle of what’s at stake. In many situations, such as familial hearings, these are emotional, turbulent, or even traumatic events. Building up trust with your clients means that they trust you to deliver good results, true, but they also need to trust you on a more personal level so that you can communicate properly.

It’s important to emphasize that this doesn’t mean ensuring success or making promises that you can’t definitely keep in regard to the outcome of the hearing, but it might mean that you’re communicative and honest with them about the process and what you aim to do. Having everyone involved to be as calm and level-headed as possible. Volatile tempers, after all, could expose an opening or a weakness in your case that has a practical impact.

Know the Players

Having a good understanding of who’s opposing you in a legal manner and the kind of professionals that you’re dealing with in terms of potential judges can give you a better idea of what to expect. As with any area, people have different approaches to this line of work, and this can mean that modifying your own approach is enormously beneficial at times. It can also help you to better prepare in advance; having an understanding of where you need to bolster your defenses and what temperament might be most effective. 

As always, information is power, and the information in this case is vast and comes in many different forms, which can mean that thorough preparation is vital.