Lord Phillips considered the attractions of mediation and alternative dispute resolution, compared to pursuing a long and costly court case.
“Once you are in the hands of professional litigants they take charge of you, willy-nilly, and you find that you have embarked on a course that has no turning back and the incidents of which you cannot even understand. Mediation is not like that. You can always turn back and you have explained to you precisely what is going on. You are in control of what is happening to you.
“You can preserve, or restore, good relationships with the other party to the dispute - you can come to feel that you are partners in a common endeavour rather than antagonists. And the resolution of the dispute can involve a much wider range of remedies than the court can offer.”
