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Mediation, facilitation and commercial law advice

Hollingdales provide commercial law advice, mediation and facilitation and other alternative dispute resolution services.

A wide range of services. One common goal

At Hollingdales, our primary focus is resolving disputes with minimal disruption or impact. Whether it’s help with bitter family estate disputes, a breakdown in contract negotiations, or a cost-effective alternative to litigation, you can trust us to bring parties closer together for a smoother resolution.

Mediation Services

We offer a mediation service to help parties resolve their commercial disputes. We work directly with clients, or can be appointed by law firms, in-house corporate counsel and company executives.

Hollingdales mediates on a wide variety of disputes, including:

  • Building & construction
  • Consumer law
  • Corp
  • Environment and planning
  • Employment
  • Farm debt
  • Franchising
  • Intellectual property
  • Inter-governmental department disputes over policy
  • Joint ventures
  • Leasing, including COVID-19 relief
  • Mining - operations & tenements
  • Misleading and deceptive conduct
  • Partnerships
  • Planning and environment
  • Procurement process
  • Sale of business
  • Shareholder issues
  • Wills and estates

Facilitation Services

Our facilitation service gets all parties together so they can frankly discuss individual assumptions, concerns and intentions. Our role is to chair the discussions as a neutral and dispassionate facilitator, helping everyone to agree to a plan that is fair, workable and respected. We then assist in making sure the negotiated outcome is properly documented.

This service includes:

  • Commercial contract negotiations
  • Contract re-negotiations, including during insolvent trading safe harbour
  • Expert conclave as a facilitator and recorder of areas of agreement and unresolved technical questions
  • Family conference facilitation - when family members hold a family conference the facilitator convenes, sets the agenda and chairs the meeting.
  • Facilitation of major project contract negotiations
  • Group meeting facilitation: a group may be a board of a company or institution (public or private), professional associations, schools. Acting as a neutral facilitator/chair, Michael can assist them to clarify or resolve issues or set a new direction
  • Recommending suitable experts to advise on options and document the outcome

Additional Dispute Resolution Processes

In addition to mediation and facilitation, Hollingdales can provide a neutral dispute resolution practitioner in a combination of the following processes:

  • Agenda setting and advising on conflict management issues and practical dispute avoidance steps and strategies
  • Arb-Med or Arb-Med-Arb:
  • Chairing experts' conclave (sometimes referred to as 'hot-tubbing') for the purpose of producing a joint experts’ report for use in mediation or court/arbitration proceedings
  • Independent Chair to help groups conduct effective meetings
  • Conciliation, either stand alone or following negotiation or mediation
  • Dispute Boards (DAB/DRB) – for major infrastructure projects
  • Early Neutral Evaluation (ENE)
  • Expert appraisal for construction claim disputes
  • Expert determination

Commercial Law Advice

Hollingdales offer legal advice on:

  • Building and construction contracts
  • Major infrastructure project delivery methods
  • Procurement processes both for government and private sectors
  • Commercial contract advice
  • Commercial disputes, advising on merits and strategy and representing parties during negotiation, mediation and expert determination.