Rawlins Davy Reeves Solicitors & Mediators for Business and Private Clients.
Mediation
What is Mediation?
Mediation is a means of encouraging parties who are in dispute to sit down together with a third party mediator. The mediator is an unbiased party who does not make a judgement or decision on the merits of the parties’ cases, but is trained to encourage the parties to negotiate and talk with each other. The objective of mediation is to try to help the parties involved reach a negotiated settlement rather than pursuing a dispute to court. It is confidential; anything you say at the mediation is never disclosed in the court proceeding if the mediation doesn’t work and the claim continues.Think of litigation/court claims as a train track. It’s got a set procedure, you have to go down it in a set way and there are rules that determine how you can act. When you enter mediation it is like going into a siding, you just pull off and you can say anything, do anything and you can bring in points which aren’t necessarily directly points in the litigation to try and encourage a settlement.You can mediate at any anytime, but the earlier the better as you have a better chance of success. Not least, because if you mediate late you will have already spent so much on court fees.This type of negotiation is not yet compulsory, but it is more common as there are severe cost sanctions for those parties’ that refuse to mediate.
Mediation Advocacy
When Rawlins Davy Reeves mediate, we are off the court ‘track’ in a siding and negotiating. Acting for a client as a mediator is a different skill to acting for a client in a court claim.One of the things that we do, and are doing increasingly, is acting for somebody in mediation when we are not acting for them in the claim. We are instructed as a specialist advocate because of our experience and skills in this area.Other solicitors can, and do, instruct us as an advocate of this service to utilise our experience and skills in this area in assisting their clients to reach a settlement out of court.
Mediation
As an accredited mediator since 2006, we can mediate disputes that deal with property, commercial, business, probate issues and divorce mediation. We encourage the parties to negotiate.