Your Mediation Questions Answered
Explore our most common inquiries to understand how mediation can work for you.
What's the difference between dispute resolution and mediation?
Dispute resolution is considered a catch-all term for the ways we can resolve disputes without using the legal channel we call litigation.
Arbitration, conciliation, mediation are all alternatives to litigation and they all work well.
Mediation is one way of doing things and has an impressive track record because of how it works..the parties to the dispute create their own settlement, using negotiations and dialogue as the means to the agreement, with a trained facilitator, the mediator, guiding the negotiations and keeping it on track and driving momentum.
Restorative Justice is mostly seen as an alternative or additional tool for dealing with criminal offences, but is also now growing as an incredibly powerful tool to help schoolchildren deal with issues taking place in and out of school, as it’s key emphasis is teaching youngsters how to listen and create effective dialogue.
What does a mediator cost?
The fees take into account the preparation time for the mediation, reading your supporting documents and running pre-mediation sessions with you and the other party involved. Then there’s the mediation itself and any follow up work. The hourly rate isn’t cheap, but you’re only paying for a short amount of time, once you’ve reached a settlement, that’s it.
Commercial mediations start at around £600 per party, would average around £1500 per party but could be more depending on the dispute value and complexity Please get in touch to discuss in more detail.
Is a mediation agreement legally binding?
However, you’re not obliged to reach a settlement, there are plenty of reasons why parties walk away without one. It’s your choice. We won’t force you, only encourage you to find a way to it.
What does Third Party Neutral mean exactly?
How long does a mediation take?
Normally, we start the process at 10am and aim for an agreement sometime in the early afternoon, giving the rest of day to the actual terms of settlement. This isn’t set in stone, and it’s not unusual to be going through the evening and sometimes reconvening the next day.
Generally though, things move at a good pace, and the vast majority of mediations settle on the day.
Can we do mediation online?
However, online work always has the issues of connection quality and lacks the personal impact of being in the same space.
It’s up to you, I prefer face to face, but I’m pragmatic.
How does a mediation stay confidential?
The news often reports of court cases being settled out of court, to which there’s no further explanation. That’s pretty much the same thing. The agreement reached is private, usually for reasons only known to the parties.