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Articles - Mediation

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Mediation

Definition-A private, voluntary process in which an impartial person facilitates communication between the parties to a dispute to promote settlement thereof.

In order to have a SUCCESSFUL Mediation:

The parties should have the ability to use the feedback of the Hearing Officer to change their position.  It is therefore quite important that the parties choose a neutral Hearing Officer who will have the CREDIBILITY to convince either or both of them to change or at least modify their positions.

The parties should have the AUTHORITY to settle a case at the hearing or shortly thereafter.  The "momentum" of a Mediation can dissipate quickly after the actual hearing.  Thus access to authority is an extremely important ingredient for success.  This is particularly important where either large dollar amounts are involved and/or when a case is "emotional" either for the parties or for their representatives. 

Cases that BENEFIT from Mediation:

Multi-party cases

Cases with wide disparity between offer and demand due to:

     Incomplete discovery

     The subjective nature of a particular injury

     The subjective nature of a particular claimant

     Contributory negligence issues 

     Interpersonal issues among the parties or their representatives causing "inflexibility."

     "Problem Clients"

Cases that do NOT BENEFIT from Mediation:

     "No-pay" cases

EXCEPTIONS-Multi-party cases and cases where parties have more or less agreed on the division of liability prior to the hearing.

Any other case where there is no ability to be voluntarily flexible (for whatever reason) in your position - even with the feedback of a credible neutral Hearing Officer.

The foundation of a successful Mediation lies in the acceptance of the idea that "reasonable men can differ" as to the issues involved in the dispute.  Thus, where one of the parties is of the mind that reasonable people could NOT differ, the resulting impasse will almost always fall into one of the categories discussed above and benefit from the process so long as the concepts outlined above have been considered.

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