Mediation offers significant advantages to people who have the courage to dialogue with each other directly regarding their conflict and mutual interests. Even if relationships have been broken, a skilled mediator can help you express your concerns and needs and resolve your disputes.

Mediation gives the parties to a dispute – who have the best knowledge of the facts, issues, and people involved – the best opportunity to work out their differences themselves, rather than have a resolution forced upon them by a third party with much less knowledge of the situation.

Through mediation, you will take on much of the responsibility for deciding how “fair” will be defined for your particular agreement. Parties who mediate can reach creative and individualized solutions that fit their unique situation. In order to do so, they must create, and then live by, their own working definitions of “fairness.” To a large extent, “fairness” is in the eye of the beholder. Each beholder may have difficulty seeing the reality through the lenses of unspoken preconceptions and assumptions. The mediator will help bring clarity to the issues and options, and guide you through the work to be done.

Statistically, mediated agreements are much more likely to be honored than orders or agreements imposed by a court.