GROWING USE OF MEDIATION

The complexities of doing business today inevitably give rise to disputes. Those business persons accustomed to resolving them have increasingly turned to arbitration as an alternative to court litigation. For a variety of reasons there has been a resistance to adopt binding arbitration in consumer transactions. Nonetheless the exorbitant cost, inconvenience, and cumbersome process of court litigation has driven a quest for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanisms. The appeal of facilitative mediation as one method is due to its being entirely voluntary. Its growth has given rise to a recognition by the Michigan Supreme Court and the adoption of a set of rules governing the certification of mediators and lending some uniformity to the process while maintaining flexibility. Consumers can expect to see changes in contracts and proposals incorporating facilitative mediation as a step to be completed before resort to arbitration or court litigation. The use of mediation is exploding because it does offer so many advantages in terms of cost, convenience and creativity in resolving disputes. There is a lot of material available on the subject of mediation and other ADR methods. Before rejecting a proposal or contract that includes language committing parties to such a process consumers owe it to themselves to seriously investigate and consider avoidance of court litigation.