Evaluation & Facilitation

The Evaluation day has three stages: Guided Analysis, Evaluation and Facilitation, and Resolution of Costs. Here we outline Stage 2, the Evaluation and Facilitation process.

Stage 2: Evaluation and Facilitation

In this second stage of the day, when the time is right, the Evaluator proceeds to announce their Evaluation of the case.

Evaluation

The ‘Evaluation’ is the proposed settlement. It is based on your Evaluator’s assessment of the likely outcome of the case, if it were to go to trial, taking into account the particulars of the case, the evidence presented, and the Evaluator’s vast experience of similar cases in court. The Evaluation is explained in clear, unambiguous terms.

With the greater understanding gained as a result of the morning’s discussions, it is not unusual for the parties to accept the Evaluation and agree to the proposed settlement.

Facilitation

If, on the other hand, one or other party is disappointed in some way and will not accept the proposed settlement, further discussions are required. The IE process provides the opportunity (that simply does not exist at trial) for your Evaluator to explain how and why they reached a particular conclusion on any particular issue or overall. This further discussion is designed to bring the parties to agree to the Evaluation, or perhaps, a variation of it. This highly skilled and nuanced process, conducted by your Evaluator, is called facilitation or facilitative mediation.

In this way, the Evaluation, whether relating to a liability split or assessment of quantum, or both, is really the starting point for the process of ‘facilitative mediation’. This is where IE assists parties to find an optimal resolution to their dispute.

Facilitation enables the parties to arrive at a point where they can both move forward as ‘winners’ – having achieved a better financial outcome than each of them would at trial and in weeks instead of years. This is not an unattainable utopia: at trial, one or sometimes both parties may take a massive financial hit, particularly so if a claimant loses a QOCS case and it has cost the Defendant a fortune, such that both sides are rightly described as the losers.

Once the optimal agreement has been reached, your Evaluator then proceeds to the third and final stage in the Evaluation day.

The final stage – Resolution of Costs

Once the parties have agreed a settlement, the Evaluator proceeds to the Resolution of Costs.