Mediation – A Businesslike Way Out of Deadlock

You’re in a legal dispute that’s heading for the Courts. Your lawyers are fighting your corner, but an outcome still seems far off. The costs are mounting. You are uncertain about the outcome. It feels like a gamble - and you want to get on with your busness and your life.

Risk, cost and delay are inevitable.

You or your business managers will be distracted from your core business – and may have to stand up to hostile cross-examination in Court.

Mediation is the modern solution. The Courts strongly encourage Mediation and may even refuse to award costs to a winning party at trial, if they have refused to mediate.

If you suggest Mediation, it does not imply weakness – and the other side will be risking its own costs if it refuses to mediate.

Mediation is confidential, cost-effective and quick. Above all, it has a high success rate in producing a binding settlement, usually after a session of one day or less. There is no commitment to any proposals, unless a binding settlement is agreed. Even if no settlement results, there can be no disclosure to the Court of proposals discussed in the Mediation. Commercial Mediators hold your position confidentially, unless you authorise disclosure.

Focus Mediators are highly-trained Civil and Commercial Mediators, accredited by leading national bodies. We’re at the forefront of developments in meeting the needs of the business community for swift, economical disposal of troublesome disputes.

We provide a neutral mediator or mediators where no party to the dispute is our client – each can keep its own legal team throughout the process, though they do not have to attend the mediation. Our Mediator explores the case with each party in confidence, depending on the number of people and difficulty of the case we may employ more than one mediator. No judge, arbitrator or adjudicator can ever do that. Nor can any lawyer representing only one side of the argument. So our Mediator is uniquely placed to help identify and develop fruitful routes to settlement.

Quite simply, that’s why it’s so successful.