Over the last decade mediation with a certified or trained mediator has become a popular alternative for resolving civil law disputes throughout central and southern Illinois. Lawyers, insurance companies, risk managers and legal departments retain trained mediators daily to quickly and efficiently resolve civil law disputes and reduce litigation expenses.

Mediation with a certified or trained civil law mediator is the simplest and easiest of the alternative dispute resolution methods that have been encouraged by the courts and the Bar. In civil law mediation, all sides of a dispute sit down with an impartial certified or trained mediator to search for a mutually acceptable basis for settlement. Unlike trial or arbitration, the civil law mediator has no authority to render a decision or force the parties to accept a settlement. Mediation with certified or trained mediators has been and is being used to settle virtually every type of civil law dispute. It does not matter whether civil liability is admitted or hotly contested, whether a lawsuit has been filed, or whether the civil law case involves a few thousand or millions of dollars, mediation with a certified or trained is a proven method for resolving all of these disputes.

The benefits of mediation are:

• Save money
• Maintain control of the outcome of the civil law dispute.
• Improve all parties’ understanding of the legal and factual issues
• Allow parties to informally explore settlement options in civil law cases without exposing their final position
• Organize and simplify multiple party negotiations in civil law disputes
• Preserve continuing relationships in situations where parties may have to work together in the future
• Settle disputes immediately – Almost all civil law cases settle before trial. Mediation with a civil law mediator brings settlement negotiations to a head much quicker than expensive and time consuming pre-trial discovery and preparation.

The firm has a senior trial lawyer with more than 30 years of experience in central and southern Illinois, in civil law mediation and trained as a civil law mediator. This attorney has represented plaintiffs and defendants in all types of civil litigation.

Sorling Northrup attorneys who practice in this area include: