How does a dispute get resolved?
What are the top four or five conflicts you’ve ever had in your life? Was it a lawsuit? A probate dispute? Divorce? A conflict with a neighbor or somebody in the neighborhood? Could it have been an employment dispute? How does a dispute get resolved?
Some people who have businesses have been involved with some conflict dispute or argument over billing, or a contract with a third party. All of these disputes have one thing in common: they sucked the energy out of living everyday life. They put all your energy into dealing with this conflict. When you went through that conflict what was the final aspect of the efforts that resolved it? What was the thing that made it go away? Was it a court judgment? Was it a failure to proceed? Maybe you just gave up and walked away? The reason that we ask and please reach out to us is because we always are looking to get an insight into what are the factors that help a subject escape from a conflict. Any kind of conflict: a very serious high-level lawsuit litigation, or very small maybe a dispute with a family member.
What is the thing that breaks that log jam? As mediators we always look to see what are the things that create a resolution naturally without a mediator or arbitrator stepping in to facilitate. If you think about it, imagine there’s a flag in the middle of a rope playing tug-o-war. When you win your tug of war your flag really only moves a couple feet, doesn’t go that far. You’re not dragging your flag 10 miles one way or another, it’s usually a very small resolution. One way or another, when the game is over and even whoever wins the flag, everybody’s on the ground, dirty and dusty, banged up your elbow or hurt your knee. Nobody walks away from it unscathed, or walks away from it with clean hands. Win or lose, you are dirty, dusty, and got rope burn.
You also now lost the battle and many conflicts, lawsuits, divorces, family squabbles, are the same thing: it doesn’t matter if you win or lose you still end up damaged. Attorney’s think about all the cases you’ve worked with and how even the winning party wasn’t feeling victorious when they walked away. They didn’t walk away from that case better than they were before they walked in. They usually have a lot of losses to go around; legal fees and sometimes there’s more losses than that.
So if you’ve been involved with a conflict, what was the factor that resolved or dissolved that conflict? Did you just give up and walk away? You had enough with this, maybe the other party did? If you didn’t use a mediator or an arbitrator we’d love to hear about that in addition to all those conflicts that you’re involved with! Were there any of them that you couldn’t avoid in hindsight.. could you look back and say well I could have not been dragged into this if I had done X Y or Z. Some of them you had no choice, you just got dragged into it you had no choice in the matter. Nothing you could have done.. Let us know, we would love to hear from you!
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