I am in the early stages of attempting to mediate a legal dispute between two family members. Am I asking for trouble???

I agree that such disputes are very difficult and emotionally very draining. If, however, they were in business previously for 30 years, there must be much that they have in common, and a permanent breakup could scar each of them for life.

Say this is your father and your uncle. It is likely that there was some precipitating event about which they profoundly disagreed, and now they are blaming each other for adverse consequence. Or the matter festered years before and finally broke to the surface. They are lucky to have you in their lives because you care for them both. Because of their prior relationship, however, there is potential that they can at least work out a truce in mediation.

However, as they are now suing each other, things have probably progressed to a point where a family member such as yourself in probably in over his or her head in trying to mediate it yourself. Do you have experience in mediating disputes in their type of business? It does not sound so. You can, however, be immensely helpful in getting them there. You can encourage each to participate in mediation. You can research experienced, professional mediators in your area and make a few suggestions to them and their attorneys. Likely, it will take several mediation sessions to get past all those strong feelings. But one motivation for both of them will be to recognize how negatively their dispute has affected ther rest of the family, like yourself.

I frankly do not understand why you would fear legal problems from encouraging them to mediate. A good and experienced mediator seeks to let the parties themselves work out a resolution. The only way you could get into trouble is if you start giving them legal advice on the specifics of how they should resolve their problems. But it does not sound they would take that advice from you anyway. But in the long run, I think they will be grateful to you if you continue to be a supporting, patient, and non-judgmental family member to both of them