Mediation is a non-adversarial way to resolve conflict. This process enables the parties to create their own best solutions. Mediation is cooperative, respectful, flexible, confidential, constructive, informal, based on a win-win system, empowering, future focused, creative, educational, communicative, problem solving, long range, fair, time limited, and in most cases, less expensive than the court and the adversarial system. No one really has the exact answer to this question. The magic of mediation is that the process is respectful toward everyone involved.
Several people are more likely to find an answer to a problem than one person alone.
The neutral third party changes the chemistry of the communication between the parties in conflict. Mediation is a faster and, in most cases, a more cost effective way to reach solutions. It can do things the legal system is not allowed to do or will not take the time to do. Therefore, it can be more creative than the legal system and it can deal with non-legal issues. Relationships are not destroyed in the mediation process and may often be better at the end of mediation than at the beginning of the mediation process.