History of Mediation and Arbitration

Article Written By: katrinawagner

Perhaps you may have only recently heard of mediation and arbitration being used perhaps by one of your favourite sports teams. You see, it's quite common in that business genre for it to be included as a term of team player contracts. That is that a player can't just drag the team he or she is playing for directly into court in the event that they have some type of dispute over their contract. First they have to go through a mediation process and if that doesn't resolve the issue, only then they can take it before a judge.

The reason for this is two-fold. First, all matters of court are made public, so sports team and players won't have their grievances tarnishing their public image when they're mediated. Mediation is done in private, behind closed doors. Secondly, the vast majority of disputes are solved in mediation.

Now TV court dramas are one thing, but the reality of actual court cases is that they can, and do often do drag on for years. In some rare cases, even up to and over a decade. Teams and players just don't have that kind of time, and money.

If not for attorneys and the fact that they tend to fan the flames” of disputes for their own financial gain, most civil disputes really can be solved quite quickly. In short, two parties have a disagreement over some money or property of some sort, and all that's needed in most cases is an expert unbiased opinion, along some cool-headed rational.

So the history of arbitration really goes back to the dawn of civilization. When men first developed a system for taking their grievances and disagreements to the village chiefs tent. Of course back then they had to courts like they do today, but the same mediation principles applied.

Then when what we would recognize as a formal court system began to be developed centuries ago, judges began to integrate mediation into the initial proceedings. It's still done today in family courts where emotional issues like diverse and child custody decisions are settled.

It's not at all uncommon for a judge today to order a couple caught up in a family dispute into mediation prior to any formal court proceedings taking place. It allows for two things. First it allows a couple of chances to come to agreements without having attorneys involved.

Secondly through mediation a judge can make a determination as to which party is being unreasonable, if in fact one is. Something that's good to know if you're a civil court judge who has had the misfortune of being assigned to the family court building.

So mediation is nothing new and it is in fact one of the very few trappings of modern society that hasn t changed one bit in all the thousands of years that people have been relying on it to resolve disputes. That fact alone speaks volumes to its effectiveness as a method for bringing fast and fair resolutions.

About the Author

In Place of Strife Mediate provides the services of some of the most experienced and effective mediators currently practising in the UK and elsewhere. For More Details Visit : http://www.mediate.co.uk

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This Article Has Been Published on Fri, 20 May 2011 and Read 235 Times

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