Why Consider Mediation?
Compared to a lawsuit, mediation is swift, confidential, fair, and low cost. Here's a full explanation of its advantages.
If you've given up on negotiating a settlement of your dispute directly with the other party, mediation may be the most painless and efficient way to solve it. Mediation is quick, private, fair, and inexpensive compared to a lawsuit. Mediation sessions are usually scheduled within a few weeks or, at most, a couple of months from the time of a request -- and most sessions last only a few hours or a day, depending on the type of case. In contrast, lawsuits often take many months, or even years, to resolve.
Mediation is particularly valuable when your dispute involves another person with whom -- either by choice or circumstance -- you need to remain on good terms. This may include family members, co-workers, business partners, your landlord, neighbors, or others with whom you have a continuing personal or business relationship. Lawsuits polarize and ultimately ruin relationships, so a huge advantage of mediation is its ability to get a dispute resolved without destroying a relationship.
Another advantage of mediation is confidentiality. With very few exceptions (for example, where a criminal act or child abuse is involved), what you say during mediation cannot legally be revealed outside the mediation proceedings or used later in a court of law. By contrast, one of the drawbacks of going to court is that, by and large, everything said or submitted in connection with a lawsuit becomes available to the public. Only by a special order of a judge can information be "sealed" from public exposure. So whether your desire is to protect your trade secrets or just to avoid airing your dirty laundry in public, your privacy will be substantially greater with mediation than with litigation.
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