At ProMediate we have a panel of CMC registered mediators ready to help you to resolve your dispute.
So you have a dispute you want to resolve? Maybe the onset of New Year 2021 and the impact of coronavirus on your business means you want to get rid of a dispute using mediation and move forward. Maybe you have heard about the benefits of mediation or want to save litigation costs? Whatever your reasons for trying mediation, you may not know how to go about arranging one. Whatever your dispute, be it contractual, negligence, insurance, neighbour/boundary, wills/inheritance, workplace or employment etc we have a mediator who can help! These are all areas in which we have mediated online over the past year.
How do you go about choosing a mediator? Here are some top tips:
1. If your dispute is a civil case as opposed to family, contact ProMediate who have an expert panel of mediators and can set up a mediation online or in person to suit your requirements.
2. Step 1 may be all you need, but our other tips include deciding whether you want a mediator who is Civil Mediation Council Registered. Our mediators are CMC registered. It is reassuring to know that your chosen mediator has the requisite training and insurance. The CMC accreditation ensures this.
3. As above, choose a mediator who is insured for professional indemnity claims. A CMC mediator will be insured and the CMC runs a complaints process. Although it’s unlikely that anything will go wrong it’s always best to err on the side of caution.
4. Ask what experience the mediator has ie do they have a background as a lawyer or some other professional qualification? Although the jury is out as to whether lawyers make the best mediators, they do have an understanding about legal costs and the pluses and minuses of legal cases so it can be useful to have a lawyer mediator. Equally if your case is a specialist one then you may want a mediator who knows about that area. Check for feedback. One of our mediators received the following 5 star review following a neighbour dispute: Thank you and especially Peter for the really hard work done. Your patience has been incredible. I have never gone through this process and I am truly impressed! It was very stressful for me but Peter you helped a lot to make it feel that a solution was possible where I saw no possible hope for it.
5. Get a quote. Mediators vary quite a lot in terms of cost. The most experienced and well known mediators will charge up to £5000 plus VAT per day. That may not be appropriate if you have a low value dispute. You may not need a premiership mediator if your case is in a lower league. Moreover, expensive is not always best and arguably someone new and cheaper may be more committed and pull out all the stops.
6. In these difficult times, you may decide to use remote mediation, using telephone or Zoom for example. Ask whether the mediator has experience using these methods. At ProMediate our mediators were using these means of mediating even before the coronavirus hit.
7. Check out the profile of the mediator. Some mediators are very well known and work at the cutting edge of mediation. For example, Peter Causton at ProMediate is a well known mediator and has many positive online reviews for his work. So you can have confidence that such a mediator will do a great job for you and has a high success rate.
8. There is never a wrong time to mediate and we would say the earlier the better, before parties have become to entrenched in litigation and costs have risen too far. If there is a Court deadline then remember it might be possible to ask for that date to be extended or moved so that you can try mediation. The Courts are very favourable towards mediation and some judges are even acting as mediators particularly in small claims. They will normally bend over backwards to encourage people to mediate.
9. Think about what you will need to prepare for the mediation and check that you will have sufficient time. There is no harm in charting through the options with one of our mediators in advance and sounding them out before booking them.
10. That’s it! Booking a mediator is actually a straightforward process. It is generally a joint process with the other party, so you will need to check with the other party whether they agree with the choice of mediator. Providers like ProMediate can provide a choice of mediator and therefore it can be easier to put forward a selection of mediators for the parties to agree on.
To find out more about the mediation process, please do not hesitate to get in touch.