Alternative Dispute Resolution & Mediation
Both Attorney’s McCarthy and Taylor have a long history of providing clients with the benefits of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) processes, including arbitration and mediation.
In addition to benefiting from advanced training, our ADR Partners have served as court-appointed arbitrators and mediators in a wide range of matters for decades, as well as Special Masters in family law/divorce cases, handling hundreds of arbitrations and mediations.
Mediation provides a productive and generally far less expensive process for resolving a dispute than litigation, as well as providing effective resolutions more quickly.
It is not adjudication of issues and does not involve determining who is right and wrong. Instead, mediation is about problem-solving and establishing common ground to reach an understanding and agreement on solutions that allow all parties to feel satisfied. This is something litigation does not accomplish.
Consider the paradigm of a dispute over an orange, which is simplistic but illustrates how mediation can be beneficial in ways that aren’t always obvious: Two people want an orange, but there is only one available. Both refuse to give it up. Mediation is not simply splitting the orange down the middle but begins with determining why both parties want the orange. It turns out one wants to eat the orange, and the other wants the rind to use for flavoring. The mediator, through constructive inquiry, finds a creative solution that helps satisfy parties who had seemed locked in an irreconcilable situation at the outset.
The benefits of mediation extend to any type of dispute, disagreement, or negotiation, as well as any types and aspects of litigation, or can serve as a pathway toward resolving the issue, or completing a negotiation, in order to avoid the process of litigation before it even begins.
A common example of that might involve someone who feels they were improperly charged an excessive amount by an auto mechanic and refuses to pay for the work. One or both parties may want to litigate that issue, but both parties also surely would like a resolution that avoids going to court, though they are too emotionally involved to effectively resolve the issue on their own.
Matters in which mediation is appropriate include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Personal injury
- Workers’ compensation
- Property disputes
- Divorce
- Family law/disagreements
- Probate disputes
- Estate matters
- Employment discrimination
- Other types of employer/employee disputes
- Business contracts
- Employment contracts
In effective mediations, the approach of the mediator and his or her success with constructive engagement have primary importance. Our compassionate and committed mediation/ADR attorneys are well versed in the evaluative, facilitative, and transformative styles of mediation, and bring to the process a toolbox that includes:
- Determining clients’ suitability for mediation
- Narrowing the issues to be resolved
- Developing and testing options and proposals
- Efficiently and effectively reaching an agreement
The success of that process is buoyed by our team’s trademark thoughtful diligence. In working with our ADR and mediation clients, we are:
- Understanding and engaged
- Attentive and deeply attuned
- Caring and collaborative
- Realistic but also open and creative
- Passionate and persistent in our advocacy
Those attributes are built on the foundation of our attorneys’ decades of experience. Our Partners have significant experience and credentials in ADR and mediation, and our collaborative approach allows them to tap into Ken and Scott’s combined 65 years of experience.