Our professionals are devoted to the principle that mediation should be viewed as an alternative to costly, drawn-out litigation. The Long Island Mediation Group encourages the use of mediation, as the forum of choice, in all forms of disputes. Whether it is a divorce, a commercial dispute, or personal injury mediation can successfully resolve a disagreement, which otherwise would result in a costly court battle. Of course mediation requires an important element; that each party in the dispute believes that he/she is right. If the goal is simply to cause the other pain, without regard to the cost and suffering inflicted, litigation is the way to go. However, if the parties want to resolve the issues and move forward, preserving a future relationship, mediation will be the way to resolve their dispute.



In simple terms it is an extra-judicial process that attempts to bypass the courts to reach a resolution between adversarial parties. Unlike litigation, where a judge or jury decides, or arbitration, where an arbitrator makes the final decision, mediation is a process where the final decision is reached by the parties involved in the dispute and memorialized in an agreement. An example often used to describe mediation is the example of two people who are arguing about an orange. Each individual holds to the position that they want the orange, to which they each have an equal claim. However what do they really want? Well one wants to make orange juice, for which he needs the meat of the orange, the other wants to make a cake, for which she needs the skin. The fact is that while their position is that they want the same thing, actually their needs show that they both can make use of the orange.

This is in a sense what Mediation attempts to do and how the mediator acting as a facilitator, assists those involved in a dispute in understanding their individual needs so that they can form an agreement the two of them can both live with. By using questions to delve into individual concerns and fears the mediator is able to separate position from what the individual is really looking for and making understand that they can both benefit from the orange.