Articles

Introduction 

As a UK trained and experienced mediator with Quantity Surveying experience and having done around 70 commercial mediations, I had always used facilitative methods to obtain agreements, having been trained that way. In facilitative mediation, the mediator structures a process to assist the parties to reach a mutually agreeable resolution. The mediator asks questions; validates the parties' points of view; searches for interests underneath the positions taken by parties; and assists the parties in finding and analysing options for resolution. 

However, for one of those 70 mediations, I “came off the fence” and became evaluative, because it was the right thing to do at that time. Here, I will set out the case before me and how it progressed until it was resolved finally. 

Contributed by Mark McGeoch FRICS, FCIArb, FSIArb, Director of Navigant