Real Benefits Of Mediation

Real benefits of mediation, the benefits are immense, a mediation will change your life compared to litigation, arguably so will litigation, especially if you lose! As mediators we scream and shout and proclaim how mediation is fantastic, how it can save you money, time, stress, blah blah blah.

It is confidential, voluntary without prejudice, but you have heard it all before have you not?

Any Proof?

The truth is employing a mediator to help you resolve your dispute can truly save you costs in terms of money, time and stress, however as a mediator I can see that, and from my fourteen years of mediation experience I have seen this actually happen first hand, hundreds of times.

However what about the lay person, who has never heard of mediation, even if they have, not been in mediation before, do they know of the benefits? I thought it would be wise to try and quantify this slightly with some real life examples.

Boundary Dispute Example

Taking a boundary dispute I mediated recently, by the time the parties got to mediation they had already spent in total £52,000, the claimant £27,000 the defendant £25,000.

Money Saved

They were both looking at another £20,000 – £25,000 each to take the matter to trial, the risk there being, one side would win, and the other lose, whereby the losing party, would not only have to pay damages, their legal costs, but the legal costs of the other side also.

Thankfully the matter settled at mediation, of course I was the mediator he says in jest, it nearly didn’t settle, but it did finally and just about! Damages, of £5,000, repair of the front wall, costs of the same to be shared and both parties to bear their own legal costs.

Therefore I saved the parties in total £40,000 – £50,000, think of the further £52,000 I could have and would have saved them if they had come straight to mediation rather than to solicitors and the court?!

Think of how rich I would be if I charged a percentage of the savings!

Time Saved

Equally time, by the time the parties got to mediation they had gone back and forth between solicitors, court, direction hearings, experts, another set of solicitors, barristers, counsels opinion, long story short this took 18 months.

The mediation resolved this matter in 9 hours, again had they have carried on and gone to court, they were looking at another 4 months, so although in reality I only saved them 4 months, had they have come to me in the first place I would have saved them 18 months!

Stress Saved

Although the parties were relieved, could put this to bed, and did save stress, anger, frustration, I recall a construction mediation I did back in 2008, which made a bigger impact on me.

In that particular case, I could actually see the stress leave the defendant, he was pleased he could finally stop with all the arguing, bartering legal and court costs which he could not really afford, equally his wife had been very unwell during the time the dispute had been going on, business had not been great due to the credit crunch, whereby he could actually now concentrate and put his energy back into his family and work life and no longer be concerned with this nuisance.

Therefore as can be seen, mediation savings are there to be had, the benefits, the impact of the benefits can be enormous, still not convinced, don’t take my word for it, read the testimonial of the construction dispute I referred to, click here, would you now not agree, if you you were not convinced before that there are real benefits of mediation?