A recent article regarding the benefits of mediation for family-run businesses in Arab nations is serving to share the good news about alternative dispute resolution. Although there are numerous legal and cultural differences around the world, mediation is becoming more popular in various countries, proving the traction of such methods to achieving results.

The article, from The National, highlights how family firms make up significant portions of GDP for those areas. What has happened over the last decade is an increase in the number of family-run business, which has in turn increased the needs for dispute resolution methods. The potential for conflict, particularly in a family-owned operation, can stall business operations and generate tension between involved parties.

Mediation in many countries has been used as a pre-emptive strike when one party or another recognizes the potential for a damaged relationship or impaired family interaction as a result of the dispute. Perhaps some of the best benefits of mediation, regardless of the jurisdiction and nation in which the meetings are being held, involve the opportunity to maintain and repair relations between the involved parties. For family-run businesses, this can be the difference between the business stalling and closing and the business continuing on in the family name.

Mediation provides a forum for disputing parties to share their side of the story with a neutral mediator, usually an attorney who has been trained specifically to aid in dispute mediation. This provides a less contentious forum than a courtroom, where parties are instead “sounding off” against one another and encouraged to generate a case against the other individual or group. In mediation in the United States and other countries, parties work together to generate solutions, providing more acceptable solutions faster and less expensive than traditional approaches. Parties are also generally more satisfied with their results and their experience in mediation versus litigation.