Elmwoods Law are mediation experts. Let's start by stating the obvious. If two parties have a legal dispute which ends up in court there will be a winner and a loser and it will cost the losing party a lot of money. But does it always have to end that way? Why not meet in the middle?
“Mediation encourages the parties to look for a solution that works for both of them,” said Angela Curran from Newcastle based Elmwoods Law & Mediation. “It’s very easy to assume that in every dispute there has to be a winner and a loser, but in many cases it isn’t like that.
Mediation lets a neutral third party, the mediator, help the parties to find a solution which can satisfy both sides to the dispute.
An example which Angela gives really does sum up a lot of the essence of the process – this is a training exercise often used on mediator training courses:
A farmer has sold two tonnes of fruit, one tonne to each of two end users. Unfortunately, the growing season is poor and the crop only yields one tonne. Neither end user is happy. What should he do? Actually, once the legal teams investigate the problem, it turns out that both parties want a different part of the fruit. They don’t need the whole fruit. The solution is that the outer skin is removed and given to one party while the other party gets the soft inner flesh.
Thinking outside of the box, looking at what the parties actually want out of the dispute and agreeing to something that a court could never order allows both parties to walk away with a ‘win’ and hopefully a continued relationship.
“On some occasions it isn’t about money or compensation. I recall a mediation I was involved with where one party wasn’t happy about some cosmetic surgery they had undergone. This resulted in litigation against the surgeon. However, once I started to mediate the case it became clear that the real issue was the information given to the patient before the surgery. It was agreed that the surgeon, with the assistance of his former patient, would rewrite all of the pre-surgical literature. This was done during the course of the mediation. The parties refused to be in the same room together at the start of the day but by the end of it they had redrafted the documentation and shaken hands. The surgeon also refunded the cost of the surgery which had not actually been requested by his patient. That is what mediation can do. A judge doesn’t have the power to get that sort of result.”
It wasn’t too long ago that mediation was seen as the new kid on the block. Today, it is a legal tool which is taken very seriously. It’s been mainstream for over 20 years now.
“Lawyers need to be educated’, adds Angela. “What is the client really trying to achieve? Can the legal team achieve a satisfactory result in a different way…look for a different solution so that both parties can walk away with something they can live with rather than where one wins, and one loses.” It’s in clients’ best interests to find a resolution that’s fair, speedy and cost effective – mediation can deliver this.
Mediation has been traditionally carried out face to face with the parties meeting up at a neutral venue and the mediator shuttling between them trying to find common ground. Lockdown changed all of this and mediation has moved to the virtual world. Angela confirmed that initially she thought this would never work but after conducting many remote mediations on various platforms she is now a convert. She points out the obvious benefits of further costs savings as the parties do not have to travel but also the fact that for the parties themselves it is far less stressful as they can take part in the process from their own homes. Remote mediations have a very high success rate and Angela predicts that they are here to stay although face-to-face mediations will always be an option for those who feel they need it.
Angela has over 25 years of experience as a mediator and has been involved in some very complex cases. She is particularly experienced in mediating medical negligence disputes and is also a member of the Court of Appeal mediation panel involving the mediation of cases before they go to the appeal judges after an initial trial – disputes really can be mediated at any point provided the parties are prepared to talk. In other words, when it comes to mediation, Angela Curran and Elmwoods Law & Mediation are THE people to turn to.
