A01

• • Deals with civil disputes
• • A form of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)
• • Negotiation is always almost attempted first to resolve a civil dispute
• • It involves trying to resolve a dispute by negotiating directly with the other party. Negotiations can be conducted face-to-face, by telephone, or by letter, email etc.
• • If the parties cannot come to an agreement, they may decide to take the step of instructing solicitors and those solicitors will usually try to negotiate a settlement. So negotiations can be carried out directly between the parties or through their solicitors.
• • Even when court proceedings have commenced, the lawyers for the parties will continue to negotiate on behalf of their clients and this is reflected in the high number of cases which are settled out of court. Once lawyers are involved, there will be a cost element - clearly, the longer negotiations go on, the higher the costs will be.
• • One of the worrying aspects is the number of cases that drag on for years only to end in an agreed settlement literally 'at the door of the court' on the morning that the trail is due to start. This is what using negotiation from the beginning tries to avoid instead of using the court.
• • The end goal that negotiation tries to achieve is a 'win-win' outcome. This is where both sides feel they have gained something positive through the process of negotiation and both sided feel their point of view has been taken into consideration. It is no binding.