Negotiation & Mediation

A dispute settled in court is rarely resolved. It is closed. Resolution — the kind that allows each party to regain their footing and, at times, allows a business or institutional relationship to continue — often calls for a different path. The firm practices that path.

Before initiating proceedings, or alongside proceedings already under way, principled negotiation can produce an agreement that the judicial route will not deliver. The rhetoric of negotiation — understanding each party's real interests, identifying the zone of possible agreement, and building a proposal the other side can accept — is at the heart of this work. The firm advises its clients in these negotiations, or conducts them directly when the situation warrants it.

Mediation brings in a neutral third party, the mediator, whose role is to help the parties build their own agreement — not to impose a decision on them. It is a confidential, fast procedure, controlled by the parties themselves. The firm acts in two capacities: as counsel assisting a client through a mediation process conducted by a third party; or as the mediator appointed by the parties, in contractual and institutional mediations.

Matthieu Boissavy is a mediator. He acts in mediations relating to organizational conflicts, disputes between shareholders or partners, disputes involving cultural or artistic rights, and in project mediations where legal opposition or a legal obstacle is blocking a transaction or an investment.

When the parties wish to settle their dispute without a hearing but within a structured framework, the participative procedure — a structured negotiation conducted with counsel for both parties, under French law — offers a rigorous alternative to a judicial hearing. The firm turns to it whenever the nature of the dispute lends itself to it.

Concordia parvae res crescunt. — Small things grow through harmony.