What is a mediation?

In the context of an auto accident case, you and the defendant as well as your two respective lawyers are going to be put into two different rooms and there’s going to be a person called the mediator who goes back and forth between the two rooms and attempt to resolve whatever matters you may have that are currently keeping you from being able to settle the case, whether that’s a liability issue or it’s a value issue or something else that goes beyond the scope of what we’re talking about.

The idea behind non-binding is that it’s essentially a discussion where you can sit down. You can haggle and you can talk over all the issues and in the event that you are unable to resolve your issues at the end of the process, essentially you can walk away from the table but you walk away from the table with more information than you had before. You have a clearer sense of what the central issues are that you need to be working on as you move forward.

The second thing is the actual process in which a mediation takes place because it’s kind of an interesting process.

Typically what you’re going to see is that the plaintiff is placed in one room in a completely different part of the building and the defendant is placed with their respective attorneys in another room.

The mediator will go back and forth between the plaintiff and the defendant essentially communicating what the most recent offer is or what the most recent variation on the terms are.

In doing so, what you’re able to do is take a lot of emotion out of the process of negotiation and that can be a real hindrance when you’re trying to get something resolved because everybody feels like they’re in the right. Everybody wants what they want and they bring their emotions to the table. But when you take in and you physically separate the two parties, you’re able to take a lot of that emotion and put it aside and really bring it to essentially what the issues are that you’re trying to resolve.

In doing so, a lot of times you’re able to resolve things that people really – coming into the process, really did not think that they were going to be able to resolve. In that respect, mediation is a very important tool in today’s judicial system, which brings me to my third point, that the judicial system favors mediation and in fact in most counties in the State of South Carolina, mediation is going to be required both in the context of family court issues, personal injury issues and specifically medical malpractice issues.

It is required. It’s something that you actually have to go to and go through before you can actually get in front of a judge and the reason why they do that is because from an administrative point of view, the

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courts are overwhelmed with the number of suits that people were bringing against one another.

This is a way of reducing that number from an administrative perspective. More to the point, it’s a way of keeping the cases that actually should be in court. They will make it there eventually. If there really are issues that need to be litigated, they will be. But this kind of weeds out all the ones that don’t necessarily need to be in court but people were pressing for litigation because their emotions were driving their decision-making.

If you have any questions please contact The Hartman Law Firm at 843-300-7600 today!