What is Mediation?
Mediation is essentially a managed discussion and negotiation between two or more participants, with a view to finding a resolution of a dispute, which is acceptable to all involved.
While it is a condition of some legal situations before court proceedings can be considered it is essentially a voluntary, confidential and “without prejudice” process.
It is overseen by a neutral and impartial facilitator (the mediator). The mediator works with the participants (and their advisers where needed), to help find an acceptable solution to the dispute and thereby avoid the extreme financial and emotional costs of going to court.
Why Mediate?
· It is much cheaper than going to court
· It is a much quicker process than taking legal action
· It is much less adversarial than a court hearing
· You are able to have much more control of the process than in a court
· Almost 90% of UK mediations end in a settlement
· Mediation often allows participants to continue a professional or personal relationship after settlement
· With mediation there are no winners or losers as each participant decides the final
settlement unlike a court where a judge will decide who wins the ‘court’ case
and therefore someone looses!
'A great mediation will be settled with all participants being equally happy or
equally unhappy but never with a winner and a loser'
In terms of the process, mediation is quite flexible which means the mediator will facilitate the mediation but the final decision is made by the individual parties involved.
Generally a mediation sessions requires a minimum of one room per participant and ideally a ‘common’ room where all parties can come together in what is called an 'open session' when required.
It is good for all participants to come together at the start of the mediation in order to go over and agree the order of the day, sign the mediation agreement and read initial statements of the dispute but as it is your mediation this is not compulsory as it requires all parties to agree at the start.
If everyone is not in agreeance then the mediator will go through this process with each party in turn in their separate room.
After the initial formalities i.e. signing the mediation document and agreeing how the day will run, the mediator will give each participant the opportunity to state their position within the dispute.
Once all parties have done so, they and their representative if they have one will retreat to their room for the mediation process to begin.
The mediator will spend their time moving between each room finding out what they see as the stumbling blocks and listening to how they feel the dispute could be concluded.
The job of the mediator is to help all parties close the gap between what they each feel is the right conclusion.
More than 75% of mediations will conclude within an eight hour session, occasionally if the mediator sees time is running out but feels a settlement is close they may suggest a one hour extension to get an agreement.
Once an agreement has been reached, where necessary a heads of terms agreement will be drawn up for each party to sign and give their solicitor to draw up a legally binding agreement.
Withney Williams is a self-employed businessman and company director with over 30 years experience within the property sector. During this time he has been involved in negotiating 100s of deals. He also managed and resolved many disputes amongst employees, partners, tenants and more.
Realising he had a natural affinity to helping people resolve their differences and enjoying the process he decided to train and in 2010 qualified as a Civil and Commercial Mediator.
Since qualifying Withney has facilitated scores of mediations both Civil and Commercial and prides himself on ‘going the extra mile’ to make participants of the mediations he facilitates feel relaxed, valued and heard.
To improve his ability to facilitate mediation sessions to the right conclusion, Withney has gone on to trained and qualify as a NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) practitioner.
This training has greatly helped him understand individuals body language and their thinking, thus allowing him to assist participants to break through their own barriers and emotions to get to the true blockage that stops them from reaching a settlement.
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