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The unprecedented fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has left many business owners concerned about the status of their service contracts. In many cases, the pandemic has made it difficult or even impossible for parties to fulfill their responsibilities. From government-sanctioned shelter-in-place orders to constantly rising numbers of confirmed cases of the virus, organizations and individuals…

Once you receive an offer on your home, you’re in the homestretch: it’s time to start the closing process. The closing phase of residential property sales includes several steps that usually take between thirty and sixty days to complete.  If this is your first-time selling property in North Carolina, you may have questions about how…

There are two common ways to settle a dispute in North Carolina without ever filing a lawsuit. Mediation and arbitration are both forms of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) available to parties in North Carolina who seek an alternative to litigation. While the two ADR methods share some similarities (most notably in that they do not…

Mediation is generally a short-term process that, ideally, delivers a prompt resolution. Once parties decide to mediate, the process can accelerate quickly. Though mediators may charge as much – if not more – per hour than attorneys, mediators are often employed for much less time than an attorney is for litigation.  As such, mediation is…

For cases on a litigation track, the road to resolution is far from straightforward. Cases may take up to two years or even more to get to trial. In order to avoid the expense of trials, late-stage mediation was developed decades ago as a tactic to help parties resolve their disputes outside of court.  However,…

When clients consider the role of an attorney, they often envision legendary trial lawyers – both real and fictitious (think Gerry Spence, Perry Mason, or the beloved Atticus Finch) – whose eloquent arguments captivate jurors and spectators. The reality, though, is that substantially more cases are resolved through settlement discussions than by feats of legal…

For parties engaged in a legal dispute, the prospect of resolving a dispute outside of the traditional legal process may sound foreign. Nonetheless, an increasingly small percentage of civil cases proceed to trial, the vast majority resolving through formal or informal mediation. Mediation offers a neutral way for parties to discuss their disputes. It is…