What we do

Mediation Procedure

If you wish to take your case to mediation, or are directed to do so by the courts, having first talked to your solicitor and/or adviser and, ideally, obtained the agreement of the other party, you should contact GLEAMED as shown at the Contact Us page or by clicking here.  N.B.  If you would prefer, GLEAMED will approach the other party on your behalf.

GLEAMED will send you the necessary documents, including a Mediation Agreement which you must sign and return, together with a cheque for the costs quoted to you. GLEAMED’s Mediation Coordinator and the appointed Mediator will then work with the disputants and their representatives/advisers to finalise the arrangements.

The appointed Mediator will be provided on the terms set out in the Mediation Agreement document that you sign. The Mediation Agreement establishes the confidentiality of all proceedings, ensuring the disputants privacy and making all offers and exchangers during mediation “without prejudice” and not, therefore, subject to any subsequent disclosure.

If the nominated Mediator should become unavailable another will be offered, but any disputant may withdraw at this stage if they prefer and all monies paid will be refunded. If the mediation is cancelled by one or more of the disputants then a proportion of the monies paid may be refunded, depending on how much notice is given.

The mediation will take place at the agreed time and place, and for the agreed duration. The Mediator will usually see the parties together initially and then talk to them separately. The Mediator will explore with the disputants the issues and difficulties concerned and the options for a settlement. Any information given to the Mediator will not be conveyed to any other disputant without express consent for the Mediator to do so. When an agreement is reached the Mediator will facilitate arrangements by the parties and their solicitors/advisers to commit it to writing.

The mediation can be extended with the agreement of all concerned, by extra hours or days, either to continue mediation or allow the disputants to consider their positions.  The mediation may also be suspended pending specialist input, e.g. by an Expert Witness. Conversely, if at any time the Mediator believes that any party is abusing the mediation process or otherwise concludes that there is unlikely to be a mutually acceptable outcome, the Mediator will inform the parties that the mediation has been terminated.

Some thoughts on Conflict Resolution: prevention, management and settlement.

Many of our Mediators have been involved in conflict and dispute resolution around the world and are contributing to the debate on whether all conflicts can actually be resolved or some merely managed.  Other common terms used in this debate include Conflict Management, Conflict Transformation and Conflict Intervention.

To resolve a conflict, Mediators need to address the underlying issues and the interests of the parties to find win-win outcomes rather than seeking ways to impose an unacceptable win-lose solution, including one that may be the result of a court judgment.  This is especially relevant where conflict is being used quite deliberately as an instrument for change, especially for political, organisational, personal or other social engineering purposes.  In these cases, resolution occurs by listening to and providing opportunities for meeting the needs of all disputants, and by finding acceptable ways of adequately addressing their interests so that each party is satisfied with the outcome. While 'conflict resolution' engages conflict once it has already started, 'conflict prevention' aims to reconcile disputants before their disagreements lead to verbal, physical, or legal fighting or even violence.  Mediators can be particularly helpful  when coalitions, consortia or other groupings are coming together and each participant is concerned to protect their own interests whilst having insufficient regard for those of others and also potentially unrealistic expectations of the benefits of their collaboration.  A neutral third party (the Mediator) can delve into these areas with each participant and help them to identify their mutual benefits and constraints, leading to realistic expectations, clarity of roles and responsibilities and an agreed framework/contract/governance regime that embeds arrangements they can all agree to.

Conflict or dispute management is useful for dealing with a ‘flare-up’ with its origins in a long-running underlying dispute that neither side is yet ready to settle.  Over time, the precedents and arrangements arrived at in settling these local ‘flare-ups’ can contribute to the development of a wider settlement for part of or even the entire underlying dispute.  However, whilst Mediators will need to keep the underlying issues in mind when dealing with a ‘flare-up’, their focus must remain on resolving the immediate dispute so as to prevent the situation getting worse.  In the process, they can, of course, take any opportunity to address the wider issues but must remain alert to the danger of getting diverted from achieving a speedy resolution of the immediate problem in the process.  

Our Mediators work on conflict and dispute resolution in many arenas - internationally, commercially, in the workplace and community, and domestically, and draw on their extensive experience to facilitate the development of settlements, including the arrangements for their implementation, that are acceptable to all the parties concerned.