Ms. Windel understands that lawyers and parties have very busy schedules. During the course of litigation unexpected things happen that are beyond everyone’s control. Often despite everyone’s best efforts, the parties may not be ready to mediate on the originally-scheduled date, and sometime a case may even settle prior to mediation.
In order to balance fairness to both the parties and the Mediator, we have set the following policy in place. For all notices indicated, the notice must be in writing and sent to Ms. Windel by e-mail for date and time stamp.
If written notice is given to the Mediator no later than 14 days prior to the start of a scheduled mediation that the matter has settled or that the mediation is cancelled (and not reset), Ms. Windel charges a $75 administrative and processing fee to each party and the balance of the fees are returned to the parties.
If the mediation session is cancelled (and not reset) or settled within 14 days prior to a confirmed scheduled mediation, each party will owe one-half of his/her individual fee for the scheduled session and the remaining one-half of the fee will be returned to each party—unless the cancellatin or settlement occurs within three (3) days of the scheduled mediation.
If the mediation session is cancelled (and not reset) or the matter is settled within 3 days prior to a scheduled mediation, there will be no administrative & processing fee charged and no refund to either party.
Mediations can be reset one time with no penalty or surcharge.
Mediations can be reset subsequent times with a $100 per party resetting fee for each resetting.
Ms. Windel reserves the right to refund all or partial fees to a non-cancelling party in rare circumstances with such call at her sole discretion.