What Happens Once Probate Litigation Begins

Those come basically into being once we've already started litigation and we're going down that path. So, those are available to us after we've already said, "Hey, we're fighting about something," and the court issues something called a joint scheduling order. And what that is, is basically an outline for the litigation from day one to trial.

You don't have to go through the whole scheduling order. You can settle at any moment. But the reason the court does this is so you're not back in every 2 months going, "Well, we hit our two deadlines, but we're still not in agreement, so we need our next set of dates."

And I think a lot of clients, when they see — because litigation in Arizona usually is 18 to 24 months — so, when they see dates that are 2026, 2027, they panic and go, "I'm going to be doing this for the..." and it's like, "No, no, no. The court just wants it calendared so we don't have to keep coming back and taking time."

At court, anytime, we can pause it. We can tell the court, "Hey, we're going to go to mediation. Can we pause this while we do this? We think we're going to settle." So, that's where we can kind of come in and let the court know what we're doing. The court is overseeing it.