Over the course of 20 months between March 1852 and September 1953, Charles Dickens published installments of what would become known as one of his best novels—Bleak House. It is known as one of his best due to the intricate and complex weaving of characters throughout the main plot and sub-plots of the book.

And what topic could include this level of complexity? None other than inheritance disputes. Anyone who has ever mediated an inheritance dispute will immediately understand how this subject could be so tense with complex character drama. It’s because inheritance disputes, themselves, are some of the most complex to mediate—particularly because they involve intense emotions involving family members that have likely been building for decades (or even generations). The complexity is so thick you could cut it with a knife.

The case within the book is Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, an inheritance dispute in which “[i]nnumerable children have been born into the cause; innumerable old people have died out of it.” By the end of the novel, litigation has ruined a once noble and wealthy family to such an extent that there is nothing left to squabble over. Dickens’ most genius assertion here is that inheritance disputes can be long, complicated and full of enough emotion to drown several households put together, especially if they all share common bloodlines.

A more recent inheritance dispute involving £200,000 left by Daphne Burgess to her daughters Julia Hawes and Libby Burgess ended in much the same way as Dickens’ tale—so much so that the judge even referred to the novel. After dragging the inheritance sum through litigation, Burgess’ son Peter ensured that none of the money was left to give anyone. According to an article published in the U.K.’s Daily Mail, one of the judges involved with the Burgess case, Lord Justice Mummery, “compared the case with the infamous lawsuit in Charles Dickens’s Bleak House: ‘It may be recalled that the foggy family law suit in Jarndyce v. Jarndyce dragged on before the Lord Chancellor for generations until nothing was left for the parties to take.’” Lord Justice Mummery also stated that, “The cost of contesting Mrs. Burgess’ will is a calamity for this family in every way. Even worse are the human consequences for a once close-knit and loving family.”

Although not all inheritance disputes end like this, it is important to stress to your clients that there might be some fights not worth taking on, especially if there will be no “winner” on the other side of the fight. When everyone loses, why bother disputing the inheritance in the first place?

When philosophies and strategies misalign in a business partnership, the cost can be great. The money, time and enormous effort that went into creating the business could be lost, and the financial and emotional welfare of multiple families could be at stake. In fact, if more people were aware of how crucial it is to avoid partnerships in the first place, there would be a lot fewer businesses breaking apart due to miscommunication, misappropriation and misrepresentation.

This can happen in a variety of ways, and between partners who have been friends for years before the business partnership even began. What starts off as a minute detail can turn into an obstacle that seems impossible to overcome. However, regardless of how it begins, it’s how it ends that really counts—and too many disputes end in utter failure of the business. This is why it is so important for business partners to mediate their disputes as quickly as they arise.

Mediation is especially useful for business partnership disputes because it forces business partners to do what they should have done in the first place to avoid the dispute: plan carefully and put it all down on paper. This includes completing signed agreements before any work is done. In that agreement, there should be explicit explanations of each partner’s role, compensation and protections, both for now and in the future when the business grows.

Another approach that mediation takes is risk management—determining the worst-case scenario and how the company will deal with it. This should be the first step business partners take to avoid disputes, both now and in the future. It’s also the way that business partners work their way out of disputes. Having a solid plan for every plausible scenario in the future of the business is a preemptive strike against disputes that could and would easily ruin a company.

Finally, mediation’s approach to finding common values between the disputants is the perfect springboard for beginning any business partnership, before the dispute ever occurs. When partners find their common values and declare their commitments to the company, they have a higher sense of personal responsibility to it. Discussion of the values, beliefs and company culture that each partner imagines helps to clarify any misunderstanding on the front end, and by doing so, assist in avoiding future confrontation down the road that could be detrimental for the business’ success.