The Neutral’s Chair, and the Practice Behind It
Richard O’Shea is a solicitor at Mary Molloy Solicitors and holds the Law Society of Ireland Diploma in Mediation — the Society’s own qualification in the discipline, and the credential that sits at the centre of this practice. Mediating is not advocacy performed gently: the habits that serve a client well in a dispute — advancing a position, probing the other side, protecting an advantage — are precisely the habits a mediator sets down at the door, and the training exists to make that a deliberate transition rather than an assumed one. What the wider practice adds is context: over four decades of commercial, company, property, employment and probate work in a firm established in 1981, which is why the disputes this site addresses — the OMC at war with itself, the shareholders who can no longer be in a room, the siblings and the farm, the estate being consumed by its own costs — are familiar territory rather than case studies. The TEP qualification sits behind the succession and inheritance work specifically. The point of all of it is unglamorous: a neutral who understands what the parties are actually arguing about moves a room faster than one learning the subject on the day.
Two Roles, One Rule — and the Honest Bit About Litigation
There are two ways this practice appears in a mediation, and they are structurally different. As mediator: appointed jointly by the parties, neutral, acting for nobody, advising nobody, deciding nothing — running a process and drafting the settlement if one comes. As solicitor for one party: instructed by a single client going into someone else’s mediation — preparing the case, advising on positions and options, and advising on the settlement before it is signed, which is the moment that matters most. The rule governing both is absolute: never both in the same dispute. The firm does not mediate where it acts or has acted for a party, and does not act for a party in a dispute it is mediating — which is why the conflicts check runs at first contact, before any substantive conversation, and why we ask for the names of every party before anything else. And the part most mediation websites leave out: this is also a litigation firm, which means the alternative to settlement is not an abstraction here — the disclosure, the timescales, the exposure and the costs are known from running them. That produces honest advice in both directions, including the advice nobody expects from a mediation site: some disputes should be fought. A test case that needs a precedent, a limitation deadline running, a party acting in bad faith, an urgent injunction — those need a courtroom, and you will be told so plainly. The full account of when mediation is the wrong room is on the main mediation page.
A Dispute Worth a Room?
Ten lines describing it, the names of every party for the conflicts check, and what a good outcome would actually look like for you. The position - mediator, solicitor, or honestly neither - comes back straight away.
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