Please read this excellent post by Juan Antunez at Florida Probate & Trust Litigation Blog:
Here is an excerpt:
"A defining characteristic of probate litigation is that your cases are decided by judges, no jury trials here. If your judge is prepared and understands the facts and law of your case, all is well. But when your judge is not prepared, or simply doesn’t "get" it, he’s what Denver, Colorado litigator Peter Bornstein refers to as a "cold" judge in Persuading a Cold Judge, an excellent article just published in the ABA’s Litigation magazine. Here’s how Bornstein frames the issue:"
And this is MOST interesting:
"So what’s to be done? One option is to "privatize" contested probate proceedings to the extent possible by tapping into one of the many alternative-dispute-resolution tools available under Florida law [click here]."