Covid-19 Contract Disasters online mediation offer

We have heard that 1,000 contracts a day are being breached. What can you do?

Never in my long experience as a solicitor have I been instructed to deal with a breach of contract resulting from a pandemic.

Over recent weeks, I have read a great deal about business problems in general. It seems that, in the round, many problems are associated with a contract that cannot be completed. This is particularly painful to a business dependent upon a supply chain which cannot be replaced.

I already offer online mediation, as far as possible following the practice and procedure now commonly available for face-to-face mediation. There are differences. I have covered them. I now offer online mediation simply as a variant in the mediation process.

To help any business with contract problems I have now added a very specific and slightly different service to help any business or individual to sort out your contract problems.

Let’s just do it!

• Read a few pages on this website by all means. You need to know what is involved in mediation. Some of the more important ones are linked in the column on the right.
• Ring me on (07907) 964565. No long messages please. Just give me your phone number simply and clearly.
• Agree a fast mediation with your conflict-party. If your relationship with them is formal, there is a draft letter / message at LINK.
• Both parties register, give me your basic details and a little about your dispute at our Request to Mediate form.
• I shall then ring you personally to talk you through a couple of important things and to answer your questions.
• Registration also triggers an auto email message with advice and instructions on what next.
• Go to the fees and diary page, agree what you want with your conflict-party and get it booked in. If you can’t find the slot you want fast enough, ring me. I will do whatever I can to fit you in.
• Pay for the agreed time – payment is always up front for mediation. Then get the mediation agreement signed up.
• Get that done in a day!
• Next day: we meet – Skype or GoToMeeting. I don’t use the meeting software you’ve probably heard more about. I am concerned about security issues. Your business is confidential. My business is to help you keep it that way.
• Dispute settled. You write what you have agreed. You exchange copies through me by email or use electronic signing which I have now set up.

OK, it might not always be possible to move quite that fast, but you get the point.

In the website pages, I talked quite a lot about the importance of documents. If you have a load of documents I need to digest, then I can’t do so in five minutes. But I must have one or more documents relating specifically to the broken contract.

I’ve only just made this offer. If you want to take me up on it, it’s a good idea to do so immediately.

Before I finish, is just one more important point. I practice facilitative mediation. I have described it on several pages on this website. It’s a gentle process – at least until half an hour before the meeting is due to terminate!

We have a different situation here. I am prepared to change my own rules so as to explain the legal alternatives, as I see them. We have to be able to talk about legal stuff like frustration of the contract; force majeure; who might be in breach of contract and why; why one of you may be able to cancel but not the other. Of course, I can help you to understand the law, and how it may apply to your situation, but shall I be able to tell you what might happen in court? No way. No one knows. Just don’t go there.

If it seems that the best answer needs a bit of tweaking to your contract, then I may help you with that – but only if both participants want that. This will be your mediation. I am here to help. My prize is to see both participants working together again confidently and happily within 24 hours of my involvement.

Who am I?

My cv is on another page, but just for the record, through www.netlawman.co.uk, Over 17 years, I have drawn around 2,500 legal contracts and sold variations of them 250,000 times in seven countries divided among 16 jurisdictions.