The advantages of mediation

Mediation is fast. It can be all over in a week or so.

The cost of mediation is far, far lower than litigation or arbitration.

You are in control of mediation from start to finish.

Mediation is stress-free: no surprises; no court appearances; no more lost sleep. Just a mediator gently guiding and cajoling you to your best possible deal.

Mediation is confidential. No public records. No social media. No disclosure of what has been agreed.

No bullying: the mediator will always keep a level playing field.

Mediation offers solutions no one had thought of – benefits and advantages outside what a judge could order.

The structured but informal atmosphere allows you to think and speak at your best.

After a mediated settlement, you can go back to business as usual to complete your building or your IT project.

Now let’s elaborate

Speed

A typical business mediation lasts a day. A complicated commercial mediation might run over several weeks, culminating in a one or two day mediation meeting. The same dispute might take years to resolve through the courts.

With mediation, the cost of your time away from business will be minimal. Your dispute can be sorted in less time than it takes to serve a claim, let alone see a case litigated to the end in Court.

Management time is saved, not only because the process takes less time, but also because time spent on the mediation is spent directly and usefully, not in waiting for lawyers or courts. You will spend more time managing your business, your life and your family and less time managing your litigation.

By the way, if you want an expedited mediation, the Mediator will aim to achieve settlement in hours rather than weeks using a fast-track approach. This can be immensely important when a project is interrupted pending settlement.

Cost

Mediation is the lowest cost way to resolve a dispute. An average case in the County Court may set you back by tens of thousands of pounds.

A more complicated claim in the High Court might cost half a million pounds.

With mediation, there is just one payment to the mediator for his or her time on the day. There are no court filing fees and related expenses.

You may believe that recovery of your legal costs “follow the event”. Believe us, they rarely do - at least not fully.

There are all sorts of reasons why a winner never receives back all of the costs.

Our first hand experience tells us that although the initial opinion your barrister gives you may be bullish about your chances of winning, you will find that as the day of the hearing in Court comes closer, all sorts of reasons have arisen as to why the same promising odds as a year previously now have lengthened.

In fact, 95% of claims issued in Court are in fact actually settled before the main hearing.

By the time your legal team is suggesting a negotiation or a direct offer, you will have spent many thousands of pounds, only to be advised to settle - usually under time and financial pressure.

That is when you look back, you may wish you had settled 24 months earlier - by mediation.

Control

You are in control of a mediation.

You are dealing with human beings in a human environment. The Mediator will provide that environment. He is the expert guide who will lead you through the jungle of law and business practice. He will help both sides to see more clearly and to understand the consequences of their decisions.

Stress

Litigation is stressful - very stressful.

A court appearance is just one cause of it. Do you really want to stand up in front of a judge? Do you want to be cross examined?

Even an appointment with your solicitor may be stressful.

It’s not only a business problem either. Do you want to wake up night after night, angry, frustrated, thinking about revenge, worried about cost; then spending your days living an exhausted half life.

Just get into mediation and get your life back. Mediation has many advantages over litigation or even arbitration.

Objective assessment of the issues

Even if you think you will have to go to court, you should start with mediation.

The exercise will at least enable you to see both your case and that of your opponent more objectively and clearly.

Because an understanding of your opponent’s case may be obtained more quickly, it is likely that a proportion of your legal costs to that point will be saved, as against obtaining the same information through litigation.

More positively, if mediation does not assist a final agreement, it is likely to resolve some of the issues, leaving the parties to disagree about less.

Confidentiality

Protect your reputation. Protect your brand. Protect your technical secrets. Protect your image. Protect your self esteem.

Every word said in Court is usually available on public record. A civil trial may be attended by anyone.

In particular, every judge’s order includes “findings of fact”. Ever after the hearing, the facts found remain on the public record. Often, the publication of facts may in fact consist of data that could be prejudicial to the business of one party or the other.

By contrast, a mediation is confidential. Only the parties to it know even that it happened. Customers, suppliers and bankers are unaware. Reputations are saved, shareholders are happy.

If you run a public company, don’t let auditors, shareholders or financial commentators pick up on your disputes. Litigation has to be disclosed. A mediation can be over in weeks. You will never have a list of running mediations at the end of the financial year.

No bullying

Many business negotiations fail because one side uses aggressive tactics that intimidate the other. Once you have experienced this, you just do not want a repeat.

While you are together, the Mediator will not allow this to happen. If you never want to set eyes on your opponent, that can be arranged too. What is more, neither side necessarily becomes aware of the financial strength of the other of you, so there is less strategic bullying too.

Flexible solutions

Court procedures are laid down by government. You cannot get a judgement that is outside the Court’s power to make.

Mediation permits more imaginative solutions that may be more appropriate or helpful.

You can consider settlements that might involve not only money but questions of timing, quality, changes to established procedures, terms of business, confidentiality, Internet silence and other matters that are outside the power of a court to impose.

Co-operation

Because both sides have come together with a view to settlement, there is more trust right away, so apparently intractable problems get solved. Because the mediation process is less stressful, the parties not only find the solution more easily, but are more likely to stick by any agreement ultimately made.

After mediation, the voluntary character of a mediation settlement means that it is likely to be more acceptable to both parties than a court judgment. As a result, obligations under the agreement are more likely to be fulfilled fast and completely than obligations imposed by a Court.

Because both sides are spending money on the mediation, there is a more direct link between cash spent and progress to a solution than there is in a court case, so the parties tend to work to a solution because they see themselves as paying for that, and not for a "day in court".

Choice of venue

We leave it to you to make the administrative arrangements to suit you. We will help if you are really stuck.

Mediation can take place anywhere. The timing is fixed easily and does not interfere with other important engagements as do court appearances.

If you prefer, you could find somewhere near to where you are - less expensive - or more prestigious. That could be someone’s home or office, or hired rooms at an office centre.
What is most important in your choice of venue is that it is comfortable and has sufficient, private space for the process.

Informality

Mediation is relatively simple and therefore informal. There is no complex court procedure to follow, nor rules about what you can say.

Preparation for mediation is far easier and simpler than is required to prepare for arbitration or litigation. Your colleagues will be working as usual, not hunting through directories for some critical file, essential to your case.

Business as usual

From time to time, a conflict will arise in a continuing contract. If both parties prefer that the contract continues, then mediation is the obvious answer to resolving it.

The parties can agree a fair and acceptable solution in the presence of a mediator. Mediation is particularly useful for resolving a dispute that forms only a small part of a major partnership or contract project, where the parties continue to be important to each other. This happens frequently, for example, in the case of construction and IT contracts.

In that way, you may be able to continue your business relationship (or doctor / patient relationship) after a mediation. This is unlikely to happen after litigation.

By contrast, it is very rare that parties continue to work together after litigation, even when their case is settled out of court.

Better understanding

The Mediator will be aware of the issues and of your wishes. He will help you to identify the outcomes you most need.

You are able to express your opinions and explain facts throughout the process. What is more you cannot be cross examined by a barrister who seems to be putting words in your mouth.

No document discovery

The Mediator explains precisely what documents and data you can use. So there can be no information “fishing expeditions” by your conflict-party, as happens constantly in litigation.

Flexible claims and process

In mediation, you can take a piecemeal approach to settlement. You can accept and both agree to some areas and so reduce the remaining areas of conflict.

You will inevitably see facts in a new light as the mediation progresses, enabling you to discuss new areas and make new judgements.

As a result this increased flexibility makes it easier for you and your conflict party to act as problem-solvers instead of adversaries.

No precedent

A court case establishes a precedent that later cases may be expected to follow. This does not happen in a mediation.

That means you or the other side are able to make concessions that may be appropriate in this case, without the risk of some lawyer quoting it as precedent on some future occasion.

Cases with heavy technological element

Lawyers constantly have to take in all sorts of special knowledge on a client's behalf. Where a complicated case is ongoing for several years, the legal team will involve a number of different people, each of whom will need to refresh himself from time to time, on the technological aspects of a case.

Whilst this is equally true for a mediator, the shorter time scale of a mediation, and the fact that the mediator alone is outside the ring of technological experts, means that the time spent taking in technical stuff, and also the risk of problems arising through lack of technical understanding, are greatly reduced.

The Courts encourage it

It is a legal duty of a judge to encourage mediation. Judges increasingly send the parties away to seek their own solution.

It follows that if a party either refuses mediation outright or accepts it, and then acts in some way that makes it impossible to conclude, then it is likely that the judge will assume a lack of cooperation by that party and will not look kindly on them.

The new court protocols for defamation and construction disputes now provide that the parties must go to mediation.

Multiple parties

You can settle a multi-party dispute by mediation as easily as a two-party dispute.

That applies to a situation whether three or more parties have separate interests, or a class action situation has arisen.

Use online mediation

Finally, it is worth remembering that the mediation process is flexible. You don’t even have to do sit in the same room as your conflict-party if to do so causes you discomfort. The Mediator is very happy to take your case as an online mediation using email, telephone and meetings via the Internet.  The advantages of online mediation are not always recognised.

If the value is quite small you may even get by without the cost in money and time, of a formal meeting. In other words the whole deal is done via phone or email or by an Internet conference system.

Online mediation cuts out all the cost of time and money in arranging venue, travel and of course travel time itself. The whole deal can be done from the comfort of your office or living room. We have a ready-prepared process for dealing with your mediation whether it takes place primarily through a meeting or through online contact.