MBFernandez Enterprises, LLC

Michael Fernandez is both a mediator and arbitrator with 30 years of experience in managing people, business contracts and contractual and non-contractual relationships and negotiations, real Estate, employment and labor law including union and company issues, family, and community and non-profit situations.  

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Conflict has always existed in many forms and situations in everyday life.  With the advent of the ease of information gathering, social media and other new technology, this has only increased conflict or the ability for conflict to escalate to a level where there is a need for a dispute resolution process to assist in eliminating disputes or turning disputes into a positive conflict situation verses a negative situation.  

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Two such conflict resolution processes that have grown into preferred methods of conflict resolution are mediation and arbitration.   

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•  Mediation is the process where an impartial third party mediator participates by directing
   the mediation process between the parties and facilitates the communication between the
   parties to obtain a mutually satisfactory agreement. 

–  Allows the parties themselves to create the best outcome of the dispute for
    each party. 
–  Completely Confidential; Meaning that nothing discussed during the mediation
    process can be used at a later time against either party.   
–  The mediated agreement is considered a contract, so is enforceable just as
    any contract.   
–  Often required by courts prior to hearing case.

 

•  Arbitration is different than a mediation in that an arbitration is where the parties select
   an independent third party or panel that will determine the final binding agreement
   between the parties.  

–  Parties provide input, however, do not have the final decision as this is left up to
    the Arbitrator.
–  The decision of the Arbitrator is final and enforceable on all parties.  

 

Traditional dispute resolution processes have been used in areas for legal purposes, such
as family law, collections, business and other civil law areas.  But there are many opportunities for dispute resolution processes such as facilitation, mediation and arbitration in other areas as well.  These would include facilitation or mediation for business to business issues, relating to contracting discussions or negotiations, organizational as between employees, groups of employees or management, labor issues, schools and even community and non-profit organizations.