Services
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.