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If you have tried to settle with the person or group responsible for your injury, and you have failed, you probably dread the thought of any possible trial. Fortunately, you can make your life less stressful by avoiding such a trial. You can do that by pursuing an approach that demands the presence of a mediator.
If that approach appeals to you, then you will want to try using mediation. It has been designed for introduction into the claim-settling process before the two sides of a given dispute get exposed during a trial. During mediation, the arguments made by each side get heard by the mediator, and not by anyone else.
How mediation works
Both parties sit down with a neutral third party (a mediator). Neither party gets placed in a position in which it must listen to the mediator’s opinions or follow one or more of the mediator’s decisions. All three parties do plenty of talking, but none of their statements gets recorded. Hence none of those same statements can be used later by some legal representative from either side of the still-unsettled dispute.
What purpose do the different statements serve?
Each party speaks with the mediator, while the opposing party listens to what has been said. Then the two parties speak to each other while the mediator listens. Finally, the mediator speaks privately with each party. After that the mediator’s job consists of encouraging some change in the position that has been taken by each of the two opposing parties. Ideally, implementation of such changes sets the stage for an agreement.
Benefits linked to mediation process
Compared to a lengthy trial, the process that helps two parties to mediate an agreement seems brief and quick. At the same time, it does not force anyone to pay a huge legal fee. In fact, some neighborhoods have centers where volunteers guide the mediating parties.
If a mediator’s fee does have to be paid, the two sides can share that cost. Some adults welcome the chance to pay for access to a less-stressful process. The mediating parties share and debate their views; each of them senses the inappropriate nature of any bickering in that particular situation.
The insurer’s view of mediation
Not all insurers agree to provide an adjuster with time for leaving the office and ending a mediated meeting of the two parties. Some of them prefer to have their adjusters use the telephone at all times, when communicating with a policy holder. An adjuster finds it easier to stick with a low offer, if he or she does not have to face the accident victim’s personal injury lawyer in Barrie that must decide how to act on that same offer.