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Mediation

Williams Tower Water WallDo you feel that there must be a better solution than all those attorneys in all those courts? It is called Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) with the most common forms of ADR being Mediation and Arbitration.

Is ADR actually just another attempt to solve the ever growing flood and eventual log jam in the courts of active cases in litigation?

MEDIATION vs. ARBITRATION

Probably an oversimplified definition of these two very different methods of resolving cases out of court is:

  • Donna at ChalkboardMediation is the use of an unbiased, disinterested person facilitating an agreement that the parties create and enter into voluntarily. The Mediator does not force an agreement or make a decision, but helps develop a basis for the litigants to put down their arms and agree to a settlement. When successful, the Mediator has often convinced the litigants that a decision made by a Court is a decision made by twelve strangers (the Jury) or a politician (the Judge).
  • The Arbitrator (Binding or Non-Binding) renders a decision very much like a Judge on the rules agreed to in advance by the litigants. It is not too dissimilar to a Monopoly game invented by the interested parties, who make the call before it begins how the parties will present their cases and agree who will be making the decision by determining who the Arbitrator will be.

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