Chris Makin’s Blog Posts about ‘Mediation’
Mediation: How To Serve Your Client Best
There is no doubt that mediation as an essential step in civil litigation is here to stay. We’ve seen the Overriding Objective in Part 1 of the CPR; Lord Woolf’s early cases with costs penalties; from Halsey the onus falling on the party refusing mediation to show that their refusal was reasonable; powerful speeches from Sir […]
What Is The Dispute Really About?
When for some years I headed up a team of forensic accountants in my old national firm, as a matter of policy I always recruited people who were brighter than me. They kept me on my toes and were great problem-solvers. They also worked extremely hard; the customary valediction on a Friday evening was not […]
How Many Routes To Resolution?
Let me count the ways… (Elizabeth Barratt Browning, Sonnet 43) Yes, there are many ways of resolving disputes, and it falls to the skilled legal practitioner to choose the right one. It is no longer the case that going to court is the only way. In criminal cases, court is the almost inevitable route. But […]
Gerroff Moy Land!
Land in the UK is a finite commodity – except on the East Coast for example, where either through natural erosion or a policy of abandoning land to the sea, our small island is growing even smaller – so it is little wonder that arguments over who owns which part of our precious Albion are […]
How Can You Really Be Heard?
It is only natural for people to want to be heard, and that is particularly true when they have a dispute. We all know about people having disputes, personal as well as in business. It’s always the same; we are certain the other side doesn’t care to listen to our well-reasoned arguments, to our cool […]
Two More Reasons To Mediate
With the constant demand for my services as a forensic accountant and expert witness, in a wide variety of cases from High Court commercial cases through judicial review and arbitration to family matters and the occasional criminal case, one may think that litigation trundles on in the same way as before Lord Woolf’s Access to […]
So Who Needs A Specialist Mediator?
I have been a forensic accountant and expert witness now for 30 years, and have written hundreds of reports and given expert evidence scores of times across a very wide range of subjects: commercial disputes, director and partnership disputes, matrimonial valuations, personal injury and fatal accident on the civil side; fraud, asset tracing, drug trafficking, […]
How To Prepare For Mediation
Litigation is deadly serious. Lawyers must prepare for it very carefully, and that is a lengthy process. Mediation is different – or is it? Well, it is different, but mediation, too, is deadly serious, and preparation for it must be just as thorough. The biggest difference is the dynamics, because the parties are in charge […]