Invariably, being in dispute – legal or otherwise – is costly. Besides causing anxiety, mental distraction and irritability, ongoing conflict can:

• Drain financial accounts
• Reduce productivity
• Impair judgment
• Interfere with, erode, or ruin personal and professional relationships
• Disrupt sleep and relaxation
• Cause overall strain

By all accounts, the less time in dispute, the better.

People experience difficulty in resolving their disputes either because it isn’t easy for them to achieve enough distance from the issues, or they’re unable to reduce the distance itself and bridge the gap.

Meanwhile,

• The focus and fighting stray farther and farther from the basis for the conflict and the means for resolving it
• Individuals become ever more needful of vindication, validation or both
• Parties become guarded and mistrustful

These are formidable obstacles to de-escalating and diffusing a tense situation. They prevent reaching a leveled-off place for effective problem-solving interaction. Impasse often results.

As your mediator, I help break impasse.

These are some compelling reasons why:

• Mediation does not require concession of principles. Mediation is not about deciding right or wrong, liability or culpability. Your opinions are respected, not judged.
• In mediation, I will not embarrass one party in front of another party, or attorneys in front their clients.
• Mediation offers swift finality with certainty of outcome – one you directly craft.
• Mediation reduces risk of outcome. The parties determine the outcome.
• In mediation, no one actually loses. But in litigation, a decision-maker effectively declares one party a winner and one a loser and, given its cost and time, in reality there are both a loser and a loser.
• Mediated agreements are known to have a higher rate of compliance because of their self-determined basis.
• Mediation is economical. You’ll spend a matter of hours or days, not months or years, resolving your dispute. Furthermore, there’s one mediator’s fee and it’s shared between the parties.
• Mediation is focused. All the essential decision-makers are brought to the same table.
• Mediation is supported by a common, good faith intention to reach resolution – perhaps the single most effective catalyst for achievement.