Hello, welcome to the podcast. It's Jacqui Brauman here. One of your hosts and founder and ceo of Legally Wise Women. And today I'm giving you a short legally wise mini bite to follow on from the last few that I have done this one. I wanted to talk to you about a couple of different alternative dispute resolution practices that you could access if you're facing a dispute or having to have a hard conversation or sort out some kind of conflict potentially it is better for you not to go legal, so to speak. Perhaps get some legal advice initially but don't let the lawyer scope out what to do and start litigation. Early stage dispute resolution can be really effective and also it can help build your own conflict resolution skills so that if you get into a similar position again, you're better place to have the conversations to resolve it without it getting out of hand a couple of main alternative dispute resolution practices.

Mediation is probably the most common one. And conciliation is a form of mediation where you have an independent person who in mediation, they're not supposed to give you advice in conciliation, it's a bit looser. They can give you advice about what might happen one way or the other depending on the options that you're putting forward because usually a conciliator is a court appointed person. Mediation is supposed to be more of a guided process so that the mediator who's trained in conflict resolution guides the both of you through a conversation so that you can resolve the matter yourself. And it can build your conflict resolution skills as well. You can approach a private mediator and do a most mediations now can happen online. So you could do a short mediation of 90 minutes or a half day mediation, for example, that might go for three hours or so, and if you don't have a representative, so you don't have a lawyer with you, you're just doing it yourself directly with the other party.

And the mediator half day is usually enough to actually resolve it. And so you can see that early stage dispute resolution can be really effective in terms of managing the time that the conflict is going to take to resolve and also the cost because you can book it in within a couple of weeks and have it over and done with and resolved. Yes. Another more complex form of alternative dispute resolution, which is, look, it's been around for a while in the family law and separation space, but it's really just getting traction in other areas of law and it's mainly to do with when there's a family dispute, although it could be done within a family business potentially, and that is what's called collaborative practice. Now, it's not a very fancy or descriptive name. Even with collaborative practice, you participate in 3-5 or more like little mediations of a couple of hours each over a period of time and you determine how long that is.

So it doesn't all have to be done in one day. And the other difference with collaborative practices that you actually have a team of professionals rather than just one mediator. You have I collaboratively practiced trained lawyer H and you have a financial neutral. So someone who can give you financial projections without taking science and also you have black mediator or a communication coach who is also neutral. That can help both of you understand how to say what you need to say and also kate everything moving along and minimize any power play that might happen between the lawyers as well. So one of the really great benefits of collaborative practice is that all the professionals that are helping you have to sign an agreement to say that they will not further represents you in litigation if the collaborative practice method doesn't work for you.

So it really makes it on the professionals to make the process work rather than them realizing that there is a backup plan here. So that's one of the really great structures that has been set up around collaborative practice that makes it work. So there you are, there's a few weighs about going about dispute resolution without going straight to a lawyer. The benefits, again, of an early stage dispute resolution are really that you control the outcome. You control the timeframe in which it's resolved and you also have certainty about cost. So I really encourage anyone who is facing a dispute to look for. While these alternative dispute resolution processes, if you need a hand, finding one by all means, reach out to me, Jacqui at legally wise women dot com dot au or through LinkedIn is also another good place.

These podcasts get posted there so you can always comment or message me directly. Hope to hear from you soon. Thanks. Okay.