Litigation is expensive, time-consuming, distracting, and stressful—and sometimes necessary.  Litigating a case all the way through trial and judgment is even more expensive, time-consuming, distracting and stressful, and is rarely necessary.  In fact, it’s rare altogether—well over 90% of all lawsuits are resolved before trial.  Most are settled by agreement of the parties.

In almost all litigation, the question isn’t whether the case will be settled, but when and how.  Few parties want an early settlement that doesn’t reflect the facts of the situation, including the strengths and weaknesses of the parties’ respective cases.  But most parties want a satisfactory settlement as early as possible.  A satisfactory settlement is one that appropriately takes into account both the risks the parties face and their financial, business, personal and other needs.

Reaching a satisfactory settlement is often a matter of identifying and getting past obstacles to resolution.  The obstacles may be insufficient knowledge or perspective, inflexibility, emotional involvement, a need for recognition of status, or any number of other things.  The obstacles may come from either party or both parties.  The mediator’s job is to listen to the parties and their attorneys to understand how they see things and what they need, convey to them the other party’s viewpoint and needs in an understandable way, and help remove or steer around the obstacles to settlement.  A good mediator is patient, persistent, clear-thinking, and resourceful.

Bill Stempel brings to mediation decades of experience helping clients who face difficult problems—in litigation, in business affairs or in personal matters—understand where they are, what risks they face, and what options are available to them, and guiding them to successful resolutions.  He has negotiated hundreds of complex and high-stakes business agreements that depended on his communicating effectively, sometimes to people who don’t want to hear what is being said.  In advising clients on critical and stressful business decisions, he has helped them discern what their interests and priorities are.  He knows what it is like to make difficult decisions about litigation, because as general counsel of both large and small businesses, he has done it himself. 

He knows how to listen, how to clarify complex issues, how to find creative solutions to problems, and how to see both the forest and the trees.