Reasons to be cheerful, Pt 3

I have written in the past, about a few canards that people come up with for not mediating. I thought I’d leave the soppiest till last, so that I could really knock them on the head. But then, after a little more thought, I irritatingly started seeing the other side’s point of view, which I guess is the price you have to pay for being a mediator.

We need cases to develop the law

Part one: ‘If everyone keeps going off and settling their disputes, we’d have no common law, no caselaw, no precedent—and then where would we be?’ At first sight this is truly bonkers. It’s like saying, ‘Let’s encourage everyone to lead unhealthy lifestyles, because without sick people, we won’t have good medical research—and then where would we be?’ Answer: ‘If everyone were healthy, we wouldn’t need medical research—stoopid!’

But of course, it’s not so stoopid, because people get ill, notwithstanding a healthy