With the limited access to courts and lawyers mediation is even more so now than ever the best choice to find a resolution for your dispute. Get your dispute resolved now while you can’t go anywhere you can really concentrate on what’s important and what deserves your time and energy.
Northwest Mediation uses Zoom, Skype and FaceTime as well as the phone and emails to resolve disputes so please do not feel that you cannot contact us as there are limits on physical meetings.
This week saw me give my son his first driving lesson, in turns elating and terrifying but no less a call for the mediator’s skills of patience, calm exterior and listening (if only to the engine to remind him to change gear).
In other mediation news this week the question of confidentiality has arisen in the case of Nathaneal Chavalier against his employer Sharp Pros LLC regarding non payment of overtime.
The parties were concerned that waiving the legal privilege of a document might prove damaging to the onward case if the mediation does not achieve a settlement.
However as you’ll know any document or other disclosure in a mediation is confidential so no party can rely on the document in later proceedings unless it is disclosed in the normal way during the case.
Of course it would be undeniable that positions are disclosed as is the existence of evidential documents in a mediation but any party who seeks to rely on them would be in breach of any mediation agreement and stands to be penalised.
At Northwest Mediation we always encourage confidential disclosure prior to the mediation, sometimes if the parties are already in proceedings this has taken place so the confidential elements are deeper and more hidden, it may be the financial position of one party or the actual goal of the other party, how the parties are feeling is rarely disclosed before mediation other than “combative” or “confident”, which incidentally all parties are told their lawyers are and it’s rarely true, cf Donald Trump’s cases where his lawyers are “confident” and yet are turfed out of every hearing with a metaphoric flea in their ear (and sometimes somethings rather worse than a flea running down the side of their face).
In Liberia in October three mean (Robert M. Blamo, Jr, Siafa Gbana Boimah and Bobby S. Gbeanquoi) disappeared while working for Moses Ahossoule the Proprietor of the St. Moses Funeral Parlour, in Liberia, their mothers do not believe they have died and have been seeking to have them found and returned.
Leading the mediation has been the Liberia Council of Churches (LCC), who through its President Bishop Kortu K. Brown have said that unfortunately the mediation has come to a deadlock.
Moses and others allege the men had been canoeing and capsized but the LCC said “The Council of Churches has been in contact with all the parties of this saga. We interested with people who are reported to be survivors; the canoe owner, Moses and the other people. The whole focus has been to find a way forward; the family people believe that their children are not dead. Moses and the other people believed that the children got lost on the waters” adding “it has not been established whether the children are alive; there was one corpse discovered and brought to the Stryker Funeral Home and the families went to see the corpse and they told me that the corpse was not one of their missing children”
Mediation skills often find their way into different parts of life and it would seem here that even where the difference is whether the men have died or not is part of that mediation.
Delicate and thoughtful work will continue to be needed by the LCC to ensure an outcome that all parties can accept. Where I normally feel mediation excels is at exploring that there are rarely absolutes in any case, here where the question is life or death may be the exception that rule.
It’s been a few weeks since I mentioned landlord and tenant mediation so I can bring it up again here as in the City of Brotherly Love who with Good Shepherd Mediation Program are working with tenants and landlords to avoid potential homelessness.
Of the 220 cases which have proceeded thus far 86% have reached a conclusion and another 200 are on the waiting list. This is an excellent result for all involved in times when things are incredibly tough for everyone working together is not just an act of common decency it is the city loving up to its reputation.
Finally we see another judge urging mediation as the quicker solution to a problem than years of litigation. In the Kentucky Medicaid contract dispute the Judge has encouraged the parties to engage in mediation to get to a final result rather than continue the case dragging through the courts for years.
As we’ve said before choose to mediate early and resolve your issues effectively, timeously, and with less stress and costs than going to your solicitor. You have an interest in the outcome the sooner you get round the mediation table the quicker you can move forward and avoid the grilling a cross examination in court would put you through.
By having a deep and meaningful discussions with parties the mediator elicits what the true “red-lines” are and where there is the potential for compromise, it is with this structured period of reflection that the parties are then able to reach an accord.
The flexible nature of mediation and the possible outcomes make it an ideal way to resolve disputes in an ever changing world and the open nature of discussions in mediation whilst remaining confidential allows all sides to engage fully in the process and understand the needs of all involved allowing parties to reach a conclusion which both sides can live with and move on.
There are so many situations which could have been resolved by early intervention of mediation it continues to surprise me the lengths the public will go to avoid referral.
Whether you need a mediator to help out with a construction matter in the Northwest, or council’s plans in Cheshire, a civil mediator in London, a commercial mediator in Manchester, a dispute resolution for your family in Liverpool, a neighbourhood mediation in Stockport, then our mediators at Northwest Mediation can help.
Mediation is cheaper, quicker and less stressful than running any case to court, it can help with any dispute whether it's an employment issue or the sale at an under value of a property, a fight with a neighbour, family issues, commercial disputes, civil mediation or inheritance, wills and probate arguments contact Northwest Mediation on 07931318347 or via email at ed.johnson@northwestmediation.co.uk
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