Lawyer-supported mediation

Transcription

Mediating construction cases is often very, very different than mediating a typical two party case. First, most construction cases involve more than two parties. Sometimes, they involve ten or more parties - general contractors, sub-contractors, insurance companies. There's a premium placed on designing construction mediations. The primary reason for that involves the presence of insurance and insurance coverage issues. If those aren't addressed before mediating the underlying dispute, the mediation goes nowhere. So, mediating construction cases usually involves phased mediation. It does take the cooperation of the parties, their lawyers and their insurers to work at this, and sometimes, that's not easy to obtain. In addition, the personalities of contractors are often very challenging. The contractor personality is often a maverick of sorts, when compared to other walks of life. So a lot of work needs to be done at the front end of mediation. And the parties should expect, realistically, if there are large numbers of them, and high dollars in controversy, they should expect that it's going to take more than one day of mediation to get the job done. As a lawyer, I litigated construction cases, including marine construction litigations that involved complex legal and factual issues, and substantial amounts of money. Before law school, I managed the construction and leasing of a commercial office building, and I also worked as a construction worker for a number of years. I have successfully mediated and arbitrated numerous construction cases since I became a full time neutral more than twenty years ago. So really, it's a composite of all of these experiences that enables me to work effectively and help the parties achieve resolution.