[Music] [Music] problem in this regard is that I see a lot of I get a lot of challenges when it comes to my name is Ahmed Elnaggar and this is Monday Legal my guest for today is a very special guest because she's coming all the way from Bahrain uh for an event and I met her my chance yesterday and I was amazed I thought that it is impossible that I do not invite her to be one of our guests my guest today is Aseel Zimmo thank you very much and good morning good morning thank you very much for having me Ahmed I'm really excited about this thanks a lot and I am more excited than you I guess and introducing ail she is the managing partner of the first link and she's a lawyer but her company is not a law firm so let's talk about that and well it's a bit of a history I started as a lawyer in a law firm I also did in-house and then for the last more than 10 years worked as the adviser to the Chief Justice and the Minister of Justice of Bahrain and I hang those boxing gloves early this year and so when you come after a decade of doing this one thing now it wasn't one thing as you can imagine um it was a lot of things but then when at the end end of that um I was like what is it that I fany doing so I went in-house it's like no that's to claustrophobic um and I am working as a lawyer I was like I'm not really sure you know I um you know the idea of um getting clients you know you've spent all your the last 10 years of your life really building things making creating procedures courts um writing laws writing regulations it's like building a house like building a mansion like building a Tower so you don't under new circumstances want to go do something a little bit less building so at the end of that process I thought to myself H not a law firm so what shall I do what are my passions my passions are two things mediation and arbitration that's when the problems arise but actually what's even more important is actually creating contractual relationships between parties that avoid conflict so my consultancy is how to avoid conflict most importantly and then when it does arise how to um resolve it preferably by mediation and that's the panel we met on yesterday but if we really really really have to when we can might as well go to arbitration um even though I love the courts and courts in the world now I have to say are not the same courts that were 10 years ago even true um all the courts have worked on their procedures on their efficiency on their quality and all that has been in the region and internationally have been a big big big part of every justice system but still that is not the ideal solution to people's problems for many reasons in particular um it's adversarial I like I like people that start happily ever together to continue to a great extent happily ever yes well well well call my attention yesterday and it was really amazing is that all my life I thought few things about mediation I I'm I'm I'm not in in litigation I'm not in arbitrary I'm not a conflict resolution lawyer by by any means but I had in my mind a an image for mediation but after the panel I realized I have no idea you know what I thought I'm doing uh was mediation what I thought is sitting with the client agreeing on a few things meeting the other party and trying to offer uh a negotiation points and so on and what I realized all what I thought is mediation was actually negotiation and yesterday's panel it was very clear for me that I need to learn about this see that is one of the biggest misconceptions is that every single lawyer so I do a lot of trainings um and every single time I start training um I say to people has I ever ever done mediation before and every lawyer in the room course of course of course we do it all the time do day Fu you think every time we get a client we just go straight to the court no we call the other side we try to find a solution and you know when it doesn't it's not successful we go to court and I and I used to say that's not me that's mediation that's pure negotiation you know you kind of need a third neutral party in the room like that's kind of a definition of the word mediation and they're like what really the cool thing after five days of training I always asked the question so what were you doing before was it mediation and everybody in the room like you on the panel yesterday realize no of course not that isn't and I think that's one of the biggest problems we face as mediation practitioners um it's also in Arabic the word mediation also is very similar to a lot of other words that means absolutely not mediation but going back even with mediation in in English and people assume it is just anybody um being trying to find a solution between two people and it isn't anybody it is somebody that is always best to be neutral somebody that stands in the middle between the parties in that kind of if you think of in a kind of metaphorical sense and more importantly somebody that's got the real skills and these skills are not organic and they're not in personality and it's not I'm born a great talker and I'm really good at the conflict resolution that's not it yes it is not good gift to you it is actually a lot of studying lot of training it's an art and a science and yes yes yes I I know there are everybody in Personalities in the prrs among your friends among your family you're the conflict resolution guy or girl yes yes of course we've all got one of those in our lives that doesn't mean that you're a mediator that means you're good at conflict resolution and that is an informal process and you do it organically and I'm sure it's very successful and works but when it comes to real mediation when you're doing it properly when you um have got for example commercial matters at stake what is between businesses between suppliers between shareholders you kind of need a little bit more than this natural I'm really good at this so we go through quite a lot of training we go through a lot of experience um we study hard how to do this um and you learn skills um you know skills how to two people that usually come to mediation have been fighting for a while nobody wakes up one morning and you know decide kalas it's a fight usually there is a big builtup between two parties and this is this is the same between personal relationship as well as business relationships you know you are always late by paying my invoice and every single time I'm okay with it first time second time third time fifth time hundreds time it's fine and then somehow now your delay by you not paying my invoice is starting to affect my cash flow as a company so now it's become an issue now it's not a matter of me being nice now you're actually really affecting my business and I tell you every time you're late for my invo Ahmed it it would be really nice if you pay the invoice on time you know how about we agree different terms for payment so I can expect I know when you're going to pay yeah rather than you randomly pay whatever suits you and we go through this and with time these things cause challenges you get to a point where you say ahed it will not work like this anymore you really need to um pay the invoice on time now long story short eventually um maybe um you get a friend a business colleague um or a lawyer to pick up the phone and call the other side and say guys come on come we really not find a solution to this and you go through that and that takes time and that builds animosity between people because every day we are still in Conflict we're still not liking each other more and more and so to get those people that now built over a period of months or years certain resistance animosity and a negative feeling to the other person to get them in a room and to get them to agree to resolve the conflict together amicably requires a lot of skill it starts with you know not simply just breaking the ice we do like we're quite we we were trained to do some sort of particular introduction to set the rules to Fe people to understand what they're in for people need to understand what exactly the process is going to look like we do for example um joint sessions with the parties and what necessary we do separate sessions with the party when you come to do SE session is really important and this is one of the the most difficult is the other party realizes and is sure that you're not going to take anybody side just because I'm going to get you in a room separately from the other person it doesn't mean they're going to win me over and it's going to be me realizing I know this person is right and the other person is wrong more importantly is actually not making that determination at all it's not your job as a mediator to work out who's right and who's wrong and as lawyers find that really hard because it's like the Matrix of our Liv very hard me thinking about it right now I think that is very hard it's really hard yeah especially when you are a technical person so you can this the conflict between people is an interpretation of an of of a clause for example in your contract yeah and you're an LA your lawyer all of us look at anything and know the answer we think we always know the answer anyway of course but you know people come to us and pay us a lot of money because they think we know the ancest the whole business has has built this optic yes the reality is so you come to an immediation and you look at it and you as a lawyer have to resist all temptation to make any form of assessment whether whether somebody's right or wrong whether um the person is legally right or illegally right um or not in line with the law uh make the assessment whether one person is stronger than the other this is the weaker party oh you know this person needs more protection etc etc you need to be able with a great amount of training honestly to really really resist the temptation in getting involved you need to stay like a football match on the sidelines you know those coaches that always s you know constantly going you're are not that coach you're the coach that's just standing there and letting the show run by just simply slowly helping the parties facilitate the conversation between them at the beginning right you're sitting right there and both people are talking to you nobody's talking to the other person and it's really really important the basic things in body language is to get people somehow and you can see it shifting H the whole thing shifts the relationship the conflict everything about it shifts once start people doing this and start talking to each other all of a sudden the other person is a person the other person is somebody you're talking to whereas before right at the beginning you're always talking through the mediator and for the mediator to be able to move people in that way to face each other and talk Express most importantly their emotions their feelings exactly what is it the reason why they're really fighting you know my example about your invoices late yeah that person is really upset because he doesn't understand why you suing me now well I've always been late and you've always been okay about it what he doesn't know is that lateness is now causing the other guy serious cash flow problem and he's now laid to his own invoices and some of the times all the other person needs to know and you know it's a bit of um the longer the relationships the more people take the other person for granted that's a that's fact in relationship when it comes to husband and wife and boyfriend girlfriends and that very much is in business very similar right and you must understand that if I could pay you I would I'm just late because I couldn't so now why are you sewing me we've been you know we've been business partners we've been friends we've been um working together now for 10 years for 20 years for 30 years why why is it all of a sudden now I've got a call from your lawyer why have I got that legal notice so you get really upset as a person you're really hurt that the other person did not understand your feelings didn't understand your situation when you've known each other for such a long time the other part is thinking my friend you're overdoing it it's now affecting my own business it's now causing me my own problems there conversations neither of those conversations have happened remember what we've done is our notices and email G back and forth and then some lawyer picked up the phone and said you know how are you going to pay and as best the lawyers can do try to do this and I'm sure you've done it 100 times and you've probably been successful quite a few times I have no doubt about it but that doesn't mean that if you go to mediation with that same exact dispute a well-trained mediator a mediator that is right for the dispute will not be able to resolve it despite the fact that everybody tried their best effort before and once people explain to the other person what exactly is the reason for this dispute things start moving more importantly we focus about on interest not who's right wrong sometimes all it's going to take is for to promise Ahmed I will pay you every 60 days I know our contract used to say 30 I know I'm never made it on 30 I'm never going to be able to do 30 you know why because all of my invoices say 90 so there was n alignment and Ahmed says okay I can I don't think I can do 60 but maybe 45 and I said okay I'm going to fine I promise you we'll do 45 and on that basis we've come up a solution now you know if we went to court or if we went to arbitration that solution is never available yeah it wouldn't be a available anymore because what is the judges going to do what is the arbit going to do their job is to make a decision on your behalf and it's always one side of course one has to lose one has to win yeah in mediation the party is to together come to that solution but let me ask you this because we have seen this numerous times and when we go I I represent private clients most of the time I represent one side always and when the the conflict happened um usually already the frustration is to the maximum the parties when they come to speak to us about this situation they already have tried talking to each other I've sent numerous emails and when you tell them let's sit down and negotiate they don't even want to do that because they have tried themselves and they feel like whatever you're going to do is not going to be better than what I did so why do I have to go to mediation because I know the mediation is going to be cost it's going to be time and it's going to be um technical work as well because I'm going to open all the files and so on and if it doesn't work I'm going to have to go to court and spend all of that again so it's not just time and cost it's going to be technical work done twice cost twice and time twice that's a misconception okay the percentage wild world of um um resolving disputes through mediation is above 80% more importantly the enforcement the voluntary enforcement or the implementation of that settlement agreement is over 90% these are really substantive numbers when I was in private practice I tell you how we do it sit down of the client they say okay you want from the other side a million dams okay um can I just honestly if you got your million Dirhams 50% now or in three months would it be better than a million dhams in a year's time most businesses the answer would be yes yes for sure true 100% yeah this is one number two let's get it a pen of paper right let's do it by facts right we're lawyers let's calculate the cost of the mediation and their time the cost of most mediators is not very much most mediations are done by one or two days done actually only really big mediation will G on for a week in reality is depending on the size of the disputes and how you know got experience a mediator is it might finish in hours which nothing in other dispute resolution processes finishes in hours so that time you've got really nothing to lose the cost it's so minimal in return for getting your money now for saving on your legal fees you know the cost of going to court the cost of experts the cost of lawyers fees um all of those things you put them down in a piece of paper and this is hard for a lawyer and you had me say this yesterday the literally is going against your own interests I get that and I have an answer for this if you let me and you put it down on a piece of paper to the client you say now we're putting the value of money on one side the value of the distraction from your business which is you're not here to fight with other people you want to make money you want to build a business you want to make it look great you want to make um you want to have achievements you don't want to be distracted by a lawsuit even if you got the best lawyer your your your client is still distracted by this right of course So based on that you put that value on one side the value of money now or very soon the value of the distraction the value of the emotional and and strain and then you put all the money because you know at the end of the day everything bows on to the the dollars the pound the durhams the vinars you put that and then you compare it is it really too much of a risk to go and try to bring a mediator for a day or two to pay them something very small compared to any lawyer's fee I say as an arbitrator any arbitrator fee and even going to court going to court is not cheap anywhere it's very expensive so all of those expenses is it really worth trying with the percentage of success being so high that's a conversation you need to have with your client I think and there is also another vertical to think about if I have a lawsuit against one of my suppliers or customers and I win but that's the end the relationship and the business opportunities for the future is is gone there's no opportunities again but with mediation there is a chance to do business again absolutely 100% the parties are going to go back doing business together because they resolve whatever the conflict that was between them there's no reason why they could continue to be to continue to work together and have business together I think it's really really important to realize in in the region in particular and in bahin where where where I I've been living for the last 12 years the available options of suppliers for example for anything given is one two three if you're going to take every single one of them to court you're going to be out of business but that's the case even in big places like Saudi Arabia with these major projects right how many contractors can actually deliver the projects that are I'm talking internationally how many contractors can deliver the projects in Saudi Arabia at that size 10 five very few so you are cannot afford neither you as a contractor to miss out on these opportunities because 4% of the market because of court cases because of a court case um and the same way you as a business owner an employer of in construction in construction cannot afford to eliminate very good contractors out of the game because you're going to take them to court and the reality is and this is what the most important task of a mediator is to remind the people why they even got into business together from the first place very importantly you want to deliver that project don't you the employer wants to deliver the contractor certainly wants to deliver so okay well let's go deliver the project let's just spend a year two three in courts trying desperately to resolve this problem or in an arbitration um and then even more importantly so I got my award hoay hooray hooray now infor it execution hot very hard very hard very hard we'll come back to that after our coffee break thank you very much and wait for uh ail Simo