Litigation
What is litigation? One party hires an attorney and files a lawsuit requiring the other party to also hire an attorney and defend the lawsuit. Anyone who has ever been involved in litigation knows that it is expensive, time consuming, emotionally draining and unpredictable. With litigation, until a judge or jury decides who is right and who is wrong, you are never certain of the outcome. Alternative dispute resolution, including mediation, has been gaining popularity as a method to remedy some of the shortcomings of litigation. However, there is some confusion by the general public as to the mediation process.
Mediation
Mediation is generally conducted before a single mediator who does not judge the case but helps facilitate a discussion and eventual resolution of the dispute. Mediation has most recently been re-discovered across the country, and has been found to be effective in resolving approximately 75% of all cases and greatly reduces the trial docket of courts. Mediation enjoys such a great success rate partly because the parties are brought together in a neutral environment where they can freely and confidentially present their position in front of a neutral third party who then attempts to limit the issues and put them in perspective. Participants often feel much better after having an opportunity to get things “off their chest”, and also benefit from hearing the other party’s point of view, because as they say, “there are always two sides to a story.”
Mediation can be used for literally any kind of dispute and there is no need to wait until a dispute results in a lawsuit and is ordered to mediation by a judge. Pre-suit mediation is becoming more widely accepted as a sensible way of resolving disputes before they turn into litigation, especially when the parties are motivated to resolve their dispute without the extra incentive created by a lawsuit. Besides being confidential and non-binding, mediation is relatively quick and inexpensive when compared to actually litigating a dispute. It’s important to note that most mediators are attorneys.
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