If, at first, you don’t succeed, should you try again? After the initial mediation – a mandatory element of the civil law process in some parts of Ontario – you and your client(s) may find you’re at a crossroads in the justice system. A pre-trial...
At the risk of stating the obvious, the essence of a civil action arises from disagreement which produces friction. It would be fanciful to come to mediation without considering the presence of friction and putting that friction to productive use. Friction is defined as the resistance...
Vance Cooper was a panelist and Jonathan Cooper was moderator and a panelist at the Toronto Lawyers Association CPD program “Mediation Advocacy in Personal Injury and Insurance Matters” on Wednesday, April 5, 2017. They were joined by panelists Allyson Webster and Marcela Saitua. Mediation is a powerful...
There’s an old medical adage that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Anticipating a problem and preparing for it can often eliminate it completely or substantially reduce future complications down the road. It’s a lesson counsel representing clients at mediation would...
In the first post in this series, I discussed how personal injury insurance mediations are position-based, some of the common stumbling blocks in negotiations and why mediated settlements are still often seen as preferable to going to court. In this post, I explain how to...
An estimated 90 to 95% of personal injury cases are settled out of court during a step on the dispute resolution process. If you’re a lawyer representing a client in these types of cases, the odds are you will likely spend much more of your...
In order for you to achieve the best possible result for your client at mediation, you’ll need to ensure you are organized and have a good grasp on your client’s case. In this post, I provide tips for setting up your mediation for success, both...
Think back to the mid-1980s - if you’re old enough to remember them. Michael Jackson moonwalked his way into superstardom, the Breakfast Club taught kids everywhere that serving detention could give you a real education, and a fresh-faced articling student named Vance Cooper was eagerly...
At some level, all strong communicators are good storytellers; good storytellers will tell you that a story must have a purpose and follow a path. Knowing what you want to say is a precursor to everything that follows, but deciding on a path to convey...
Over the past 30 years working on personal injury and insurance claims - as a lawyer, arbitrator, and mediator - I have observed that settlement discussions in advance of mediation occur all too infrequently. Five factors which I believe contribute to the inability of those...