Why mediation is worth trying before you sue

Mediation is not a softer version of litigation. It is a different question being asked: not who is right, but what both sides will actually sign.

It runs on a clock. Under the chamber's rules a mediation runs twenty one days from the mediator's appointment, and either settles or is referred to arbitration.

It suits a dispute where the relationship survives. A supplier, a tenant, a partner, an employee. It suits a dispute over a fact much less well.

It does not suit everything. Where one side simply will not engage, mediation spends the clock and the fee and produces nothing, and the rules say so plainly.

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