Companies & Celebrities Using Mediation To Resolve Conflicts

Anytime there’s a conflict between two parties, mediation is almost always inserted into that type of dispute. It could be a lawsuit, divorce, or a corporate contract. The mediation process is sometimes required by a court before it can go to trial. Sometimes it’s suggested by counselors or therapists. It’s even introduced by attorneys and we’ve seen it in the news. 

Here’s three examples in large media: celebrity type conflicts. Here’s a dispute with a network, where there were two news anchors. They had a dispute over their firing and their termination. They went to a mediation session where the parties determined which ones got settlements, and for how much. One of the parties ended up with a bigger settlement because of mediation. It can be used in high profile type cases. There’s also small cases. Here’s a situation where there’s a library that’s being sued and in that lawsuit, the court is requiring mediation. It’s actually a good thing, even for the clients when they hear it is required. Sometimes you think it’s not something you want to do, even if it’s required. What you’ll find is many times more than half the time, that mediation resolves the conflict. So you don’t have to go to court, and even though whatever settlement or mediation is completed may have consequences. 

It’s cheaper than going to court because you have to pay legal fees, attorneys fees, court costs and more importantly, all of the conversations that have happened within that mediation are confidential. In court when you put evidence in the case, you put disclosures in the case. You have testimony in the case, it’s all public record, so anything that you can imagine would come up in your court case is all going to be out there in the public if it goes to trial. In mediation it’s all kept confidential, with a couple exceptions, crimes, threats, or physical injury to another person. Mediation has those advantages, and more importantly in personal law cases like a divorce; if you have a conflict between two people, when you introduce a mediator, you now have a neutral third party. An unbiased third party that’s trying to come up with a solution. 

Even though you might have an attorney, that attorney is advocating for you, they’re fighting for you. Which you want them to do. The attorney for the other side is fighting for the other side. So even though you have a buffer between you and the other party, you still have two people that are fighting against each other. Might not have the same personal feelings, you and the other party have differences, but there’s still that battle happening. Where a mediator would look to see where there is already some common ground. Where can this be put together? Eliminating those personal feelings out of it and eliminating the expense of that trial, and the cost of going to trial. 

Even if you say “I want my day in court”, you can still have your day, say your peace. You can still have your day to say what’s on your mind and put it out there for the other party to hear, for your attorney to hear. It just doesn’t have to go in court where it’s going to be on record permanently. In mediation you still can vent, you can still say what is on your mind, and have that be used to to formulate and structure the right and fair agreement for you. You can do it without the downsides of having to pay your attorney $300-500 an hour, having to go to court, having multiple events of disclosures. Financial disclosures, personal records, disclosures where the mediation can do that. 

Certainly if the mediation doesn’t work, you can still go to court. It doesn’t eliminate your right to do that, plus you are in control of the mediation. You have the final say, and whatever the mediation presentation is; it’s your choice voluntarily to do that. You can walk away from that mediation, say “no, I don’t want to do this” and you’re good. When you go to court, when the judge gives their final ruling; you can’t decline that ruling, you can’t say “no, I don’t want to do that”. You have to abide by it. The difference in mediation is you still have the power retained to say “no, I don’t want to do this, I want to go to court”. Mediation is your last chance to control your destiny, to make sure that whether you are an individual in a divorce, or a company that has some dispute, you have the power, and privacy.  Let’s say with a library or your major celebrity with a large-scale high-profile case; mediation comes in and all those benefits, all the parties ,and even benefits the court. The court gets to keep a case out of their clogged up court system that might be delayed. You might be able to do mediation within a few weeks. The court might take a year or more so it’s also a way to speed up the process and get yourself a resolution to move on with your life.

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