Complete Mediation will begin offering a mediation service from July 2016. Complete Mediation is a sister company to Complete Counsel, which is an innovative digitally based service providing focused and economic support for Barristers.
Complete Mediation will operate from Liverpool and is the first specialist mediation company in the city. However, it intends to provide mediation services on a national basis.
The market for legal services is undergoing a process of rapid change, largely driven by digitalisation and consequent de-regulation. Mediation is increasingly seen as a more effective and proportionate means of dispute resolution.
Mediation has a high level of success in resolving all manner of disputes involving employment/workplace issues, divorce and family issues and inheritance disputes. Increasingly it is being seen as the most cost effective way of dispute resolution
There is a growing interest and demand for early mediation, in particular in disputes where legal costs have historically dwarfed damages. This may include evaluative mediation rather than simple facilitative mediation which to date has been the norm
Complete Mediation will be managed by Claire Labio, practice director. The service launches with eight qualified mediators, but this will grow to 15 during the course of this year.
The panel will offer the full range of mediation services and the mediators will include experienced lawyers, non-lawyers and medical experts. David Miller, an Orthopaedic Surgeon with extensive mediation experience, and Daghni Rajasingham, the only Consultant Obstetrician qualified as a mediator, are already on the Complete Mediation panel.
Professor Gus Baker, Emeritus Professor of Neuropsychology at the University of Liverpool will act as an adviser to the panel pending his qualification as a mediator in the autumn. Professor Jonathan Beard, Consultant Vascular Surgeon and & Professor of Surgical Education at the Royal College of Surgeons will be acting as a Consultant on a similar basis.
Claire Labio said:
“We have researched the scope for mediation and have been assisted by leading players in the market for legal services. We believe that mediation will increasingly be seen as a form of dispute resolution of preference. Whilst there are a large number of trained mediators many undertake few, if any mediations.
“For mediation to develop, a more thoughtful and creative approach is necessary. I do believe given our specialist panel of both Doctors and Lawyers that we are in a unique position to be able to offer more than is currently available in the marketplace including duel mediation with both a legally qualified and a medically qualified mediator.
“It is not just a case of untying difficult knots, but mediation can be used as an early and effective means of resolving disputes. It will avoid unnecessary cost and enable parties to achieve early closure.
“In many medical cases for example, what potential litigants want is an explanation a recognition of what happened and an apology for clinical failures rather than compensation, which can often be modest in the most emotive of disputes.
“In Liverpool we are seeing a dynamic entrepreneurial digitally based culture developing. Liverpool now has the highest start up rate of businesses, in particular SMEs in the UK.
“We believe such businesses, not just in Liverpool but nationally, will see mediation as being more appropriate as a means of alternative dispute resolution and they will find court based litigation to be expensive and protracted. These businesses will equate mediation with their own means of operating that is swift and pro-active.
“We also think that in more complex personal injury or clinical negligence litigation using experienced medical experts, either as a sole mediator or one of two dual mediators, will enable resolution to be achieved in a more cost effective and timely way”.
For further details, contact us: support@completecounsel.co.uk.
