Alternative Dispute Resolution

West Virginia Insurance and Business Mediation Lawyers

There are many ways to resolve conflicts. Alternative dispute resolution (or ADR) grew out of the belief that there are better options than going to court to settle disputes. When litigants or potential litigants utilize alternative dispute resolution techniques such as mediation and arbitration, they avoid economically draining and time-consuming trials.

Our ADR lawyers serve businesses and insurance companies throughout West Virginia. ADR can be effectively utilized to resolve workplace disputes, labor/management issues, environmental and public policy issues, health care disputes, family business concerns, and insurance coverage disputes. It can also be used to resolve divorces, custody issues, parent-child or sibling conflicts, elder care issues, adoptions, premarital agreements, and neighbor disputes.

Mediation is a voluntary and confidential process in which a neutral third-party facilitator helps adverse parties discuss difficult issues and negotiate an agreement. Basic steps in the process include gathering information, framing the issues, developing options, negotiating, and formalizing agreements.

Parties to mediation create their own solutions.  The mediator does not have any decision-making power over the outcome. A mediator attempts to gain the trust of all parties so that they will confide in the mediator about their priorities, possible options for settlement, and their alternatives to agreement – critical information that they often do not wish to share. In this way the mediator may discover areas of agreement when the parties’ lack of trust in one another or fear of appearing weak or even excessively eager to settle may prevent them from revealing their true interest or bottom lines to one another. Confidentiality is of utmost importance to the process. The mediator will not divulge any information obtained unless specifically directed to by the parties. Communication of these interests is often impossible in the litigation setting, but is the core of the mediation process.

Our attorneys utilize mediation to allow each party to craft their own “win/win” resolution. Even after litigating a case through trial, each party may feel they have lost because the time, cost, and stress on both sides may be enormous. Sometimes neither side is satisfied with the results. In the end, any relationship that may have existed between the parties is likely to have been severely strained or even destroyed. Our goal through mediation is to help preserve ongoing business, professional, or personal relationships.

Our experienced mediation lawyers can help clients settle all or part of the dispute much sooner than the litigation process, save time and money, permit a mutually acceptable solution that a court would not have the power to order, and increase satisfaction in the outcome.

For more information, contact a Pullin, Fowler, Flanagan, Brown & Poe, PLLC mediation lawyer.