OVERVIEW OF BENEFITS FROM MEDIATION

Mediation is an excellent option for creatively resolving or narrowing telecommunications, antitrust and other commercial disputes. As a voluntary process controlled by the parties, mediation has many advantages over litigation and other forms of resolving disputes:

Saves time and money - mediation is often much quicker and far less expensive, without endless discovery, motions practice, extensive briefing, trial or appeals.

High success rate - commercial cases have a high success rate, and even narrowing the issues can save significant time and money.

Creative results - mediation is more flexible and can reach solutions that are far more creative and desirable than other alternatives.

Restores or preserves relationships - mediation avoids much of the animosity common in litigation, so parties can resolve conflicts in a way that restores positive business relationships or permits them to continue.

Confidential - mediation is generally private and confidential; it allows more control over the parties' public images and facilitates resolution of a particular dispute in a way that does not affect other matters.

Control of outcome - most importantly, mediation does not force an outcome that is unacceptable to the parties, so there is no fear of a "bad" decision by a third party. There are no winners or losers, and if a satisfactory outcome cannot be achieved for all parties through mediation, they can pursue other remedies.

High benefit, low risk - in short, the high likelihood of a superior outcome, along with the reasonable cost, minimal time commitment and control over the outcome, means that mediation should be a preferred option to consider for resolving disputes. Indeed, many thousands of the largest companies in the country have made written pledges to first explore mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution before pursuing full-scale litigation.