Mediation Information Meeting

At DF Mediation we take your dispute seriously, we also recognise that not everybody wishes to mediate, and some people want to go to court. Whilst there are situations where the court will understand the need for litigation (such as complex points of law, or very large amounts of evidence) parties should be aware that the courts can, and do, penalise parties if they have unreasonably refused to mediate.

Penalising a party in costs comes about as the Civil Procedure Rules require parties to give proper consideration to a dispute, including how it may be settled without recourse to the courts. There have been a number of cases where even a winning party has been ordered to pay more in costs than the dispute was worth as they were deemed to have acted unreasonably in refusing to mediate.

At DF Mediation we offer a Mediation Information Meeting priced at £100.00 + VAT per party for a 1 hour session. The session explores the role of mediation, how it may assist and the types of outcome one may expect. Should the parties wish to mediate thereafter the cost of this session will be deducted from the cost of the mediation.

Should the parties decide they do not wish to mediate then at court their lawyers can provide evidence by way of a certificate of attendance, to show that the parties undertook an information meeting session and made a conscious, researched, decision not to mediate. This may reduce the risk of an adverse costs order being made*

*Costs orders are the province of the judge, whilst we cannot guarantee an order will not be made, it is obvious that showing a court that proper thought was given to mediation will be better than attempting to explain ‘mediation was just not for me’.