Ideas and field notes on mediation, conflict resolution, case management and legal writing — set down with care.
Parties speak freely in mediation because the law protects what is said there. But the protection rests on two distinct foundations — confidentiality and without prejudice privilege — and the prudent party should understand both, including their limits.
Abimbola Fashina · 1 Oct 2026 · 3 min read
The mediator decides nothing, yet the integrity of the whole process rests on their neutrality. What impartiality actually requires — disclosure, even-handedness, and the discipline of serving the process rather than either party.
Abimbola Fashina · 17 Sept 2026 · 2 min read
Mediations are not won on the day; they are won in the fortnight before it. Authority to settle, a position statement written for the opponent, a realistic assessment of the alternatives — the preparation that separates parties who settle well from parties who merely attend.
Abimbola Fashina · 3 Sept 2026 · 3 min read
Much mediation takes place in the context of a dispute between two or more parties, where the process is used in an attempt to settle it. A dispute involves an overt and contested claim between parties over competing interests.
Abimbola Fashina · 28 Oct 2025 · 1 min read
Mediation can be used for the sole purpose of defining which issues are in dispute and which are not — a process sometimes referred to as scoping. Once the problem is adequately defined, it can be referred to the method of resolution that fits it.
Abimbola Fashina · 20 Jan 2025 · 1 min read
The variable features of mediation include the degree to which the parties enter into it consensually, the parties’ choice of mediator, and the extent to which any settlement outcome reflects how a court might determine the matter.
Abimbola Fashina · 18 Jan 2025 · 1 min read
Mediation is a decision-making process in which the parties are assisted by a third person, the mediator — whose task is to improve the process of decision-making and to assist the parties to reach an outcome to which each of them can assent.
Abimbola Fashina · 15 Jan 2025 · 1 min read
“Mediation is the process by which the participants, together with the assistance of a neutral person, systematically isolate disputed issues in order to develop options, consider alternatives, and reach a consensual settlement.” What the mediator actually does — and why it works.
Abimbola Fashina · 31 Oct 2023 · 1 min read