Saturday October 14th marks the first day of Mediation Awareness Week, an event that looks at all of the different aspects of mediation from commercial and civil cases to workplace disputes, and of course the kinds of family issues we often discuss in these articles.
Mediation has a much broader scope than you might normally realise, from disputes over artworks and valuable artefacts, to problems with line management in the workplace, medical and professional negligence claims and cases of harassment by family members or third parties.
The events scheduled for Mediation Awareness Week kick off on Saturday, with a day off on Sunday followed by a full working week of awareness raising from Monday 16th to Friday 20th October, and Marcia Mediation are proud to be joining in this campaign to make more people aware of the benefits of mediation.
Mediation has advantages in all kinds of disputes, where the starting point is a fundamental disagreement between two parties, as these cases can be much harder to reconcile than if, for example, a criminal offence has clearly been committed or there is a clear legal reason why one party owns an asset.
In cases where mediation is involved – especially family law cases, where emotions can run high and there may be minors and other vulnerable third parties concerned – the role of a mediator is to find a way through these impasses and reconcile the parties’ opposing viewpoints at a reasonable and mutually acceptable compromise.
This does not mean expressing the interests of any one party over the other; the mediator is neutral, and if anything bears a direct responsibility to the process itself, so that your case is resolved faster and more amicably, and without running up unnecessary legal costs.
The full calendar of events includes several industry-specific topics and regionally focused days, starting with London Mediators Day on Saturday October 14th.
Once the working week is underway, Monday-Wednesday have topics devoted to Brexit, the art market and healing divided communities through mediation.
Thursday is North-West Mediation Network Day, and the focus will be on how mediators in the north-west, supported by the regional professional bodies, have helped to resolve disputes amicably for well over the past decade.
We are proud to be a part of this experienced and thriving regional market for mediation, which has some of the most talented and compassionate mediators working within it, who are able to recognise potential obstacles in negotiations and start to work to overcome them before they allow proceedings to grind to a halt.
Finally on Friday, events include online mediation, choosing a mediation course and a focus on consumer and property disputes.
It’s a varied itinerary that should give a great overview of the potential of what mediation can achieve when everybody works together with a common goal – not just to get whatever they can out of a negotiation, but to recognise that a mutually agreeable conclusion is the fastest and often the cheapest option, as well as being one of the least stressful courses of action.
If you have any questions, call us on 0161 425 3940 or fill out this form
