Even though this website vaunts my status as a qualified Mediator I have not had anything much to say on this subject up to now.

This in part because I am still developing my experience in this fascinating but little understood area. This week I took the CEDR qualifying assessments involving two carefully scrutinised role-play mediations.

The very word ‘mediation’ sounds just a bit … soppy. Surely it is not a job for tough guys?

In fact, mediation requires steely discipline and concentration. It basically is all about helping feuding parties to look at the wider picture and stop feuding and cut a deal. This involves letting them blow off steam in a private environment, then cleverly coaxing them to move from Positions to Interests and finally Settlement.

Mediation is Cheap! If the dispute in question is already in the court system, the chances are that the parties are racking up heavy costs which far exceed the costs of any mediation and may not be recovered whatever the eventual expensive outcome.

I watched one mediation a few weeks ago in which the plaintiff and defendant had been arguing to and fro for almost eight years in a row over building works. The costs incurred over that period exceeded the sum needed to settle the matter. Jarndyce is alive and well. 

Parties in litigation tend to dwell slavishly on the headline sum they hope to receive if they win everything they want. They pay much less attention both to what achieving that knockout victory will cost them in financial and stress terms, or to their realistic chances of achieving it. As our ADR course tutor put it, "it sounds good if your lawyer tells you that you have a 90% chance of winning a case in court. But would you want to get on a bus if one in ten exploded?"

Mediation is part of what these days is called ‘alternative dispute resolution’. In fact litigation should be the ‘alternative’ last resort phenomenon. Taking a case to court is little more than getting on a train without knowing where it is going, how long the journey will take, and what the ticket is going to cost.

So, oh world. I am qualified. And raring to go.

Some of you out there must be involved in fatuous disputes which are dragging on expensively.

End the misery. Hire me.