The benefits of mediation Mediation have been identified as providing six fundamental benefits:

1. Confidentiality – there is no public airing in court of hostilities and embarrassing personal things
2. Voluntariness – the parties and their lawyers control the issues and outcome and with the assistance of the mediator, the process of reaching agreement
3. Empowerment – direct discussion and decision making about the outcome rather than through lawyers arguing legal points and examining witnesses in a court room with a Judge deciding the outcome
4. Neutrality – the mediator is skilled at equalising the power between participants and ensures the goal of settlement remains on the agenda without emotional or legal arguments or blaming interfering in the process and hostility is reduced
5. Unique solution – flexibility and structured agreements can be reached, that suite the parties to the dispute as they decide which settlement is suitable and which may be very different to any legally structured solution imposed by a Judge
6. Quick and cost effective resolution of a dispute – tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars can be saved by resolving a dispute by mediation even with the use of expensive legal expertise, a mediated solution is quicker, less formal and many times cheaper than a contested trial in court.

    (With thanks to David Spencer and Michael C Brogan, “Mediation Law and Practice” (2006))   The mediator’s task is to promote the efficient and expeditious resolution of a dispute. Many mediators have legal qualifications or professional qualifications in a discipline relevant to the particular dispute, such as psychology or engineering. Many also have formal training in resolving disputes and are Accredited Mediators. In the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Chief Justice Spigelman has stated, “The success of mediation cannot be measured merely by savings in money and time. The opportunity of achieving participant satisfaction, early resolution and just outcomes are relevant and important reasons for referring matters to mediation.” Importantly it must be kept in mind that a mediator is an impartial third party whose role is to assist the parties to firstly, identify the issues in the dispute between them and secondly take steps towards resolving that dispute. The mediator must be completely impartial and have no interest in the outcome of the dispute. One of Australia’s leading mediators, Sir Laurence Street once stated that: “ the most important technique in mediation is developing an inter-personal relationship of trust and confidence between the mediator and each of the parties”. An attribute of mediation is that it provides a means of resolving a dispute which keeps the reputation of the disputants from public scrutiny or criticism, by going to court. It allows corporations to continue doing business with each other without the problems created by court findings as to the credit of witnesses which may follow acrimonious exchanges in the courtroom. Again to quote Sir Laurence Street once said that: ” it is the role of the mediator to remind the parties of the likely outcome of failing to reach agreement during the mediation” and “You go to court, it costs a lot of money, you can’t guarantee an outcome. You need to take into account the uncertainties of the court system, because that’s part of the context in which this dispute exists”