Parties may then negotiate or proceed to mediation. A neutral mediator assists parties in a dispute to explore their interests, to develop and evaluate options, and negotiate a mutually acceptable settlement of their differences. A mediator may meet privately with each party. A mediator has no authority to make or recommend a decision. An impartial professional assisting disputing parties in various ways to solve a problem or resolve a dispute.
Neutrals can serve as mediators, facilitators, arbitrators, fact-finders or process experts.
If information is used as a weapon to win a point and negotiators are not hearing what their adversaries are saying, they have a communication problem that may call for the assistance of a mediator. A trusted third-party can handle confidential information, generalizing it as appropriate, to suggest a set of issues that can be negotiated by the parties. A mediator can help suggest a process that moves parties through a sequence of steps that are more likely to result in reaching an agreement. To help you understand your dispute resolution options, you may want to consider how different procedures may be better suited to meet your objectives or for overcoming barriers to settlement. The table below suggests a series of potential objectives for a dispute resolution process and offers an assessment of the extent to which each procedure is likely to satisfy the objective.