Question 1

Why use a solicitor as a workplace mediator?

Accepted Answer

Three practical reasons. First, the sorting question gets answered properly: knowing whether a situation requires an investigation, engages a statutory duty, involves a protected disclosure or can genuinely be mediated is a legal judgement, and getting it wrong is expensive for an employer and unfair to a complainant. Second, the agreement gets drafted so it holds: a workplace agreement has to be concrete enough to be followed, careful enough not to cut across contracts, policies or statutory entitlements, and clear about what is recorded and what is not. Third, reality-testing lands differently when the mediator genuinely knows what a WRC hearing involves, what an investigation feels like from the inside, and how long each takes - because parties recalibrate when the account is credible rather than theoretical.

Question 2

You also act in employment disputes. Is that a conflict?

Accepted Answer

It would be in the same matter, and that is the absolute rule: the firm does not act as mediator in any matter in which it acts, or has acted, for a party, and does not act for a party in a matter it is mediating. The conflicts check runs at first contact, before any substantive conversation, which is why the first thing we ask for is the names of everyone involved and the employer entity. Across different matters, the employment practice is the asset: this firm acts for employees and employers in redundancy, dismissal, dignity at work and settlement matters, so the alternative to a mediated resolution is not an abstraction here. That produces honest advice in both directions - including the advice nobody expects from a mediation website, which is that some situations should not be mediated at all.

Question 3

Do you act for employers, or for employees?

Accepted Answer

As mediator, for neither - that is the whole point, and it holds regardless of who pays the fee. The mediator is proposed to both sides, accepted by both, makes no findings, reports nothing on the merits to anyone, and advises nobody. Separately, and never in the same matter, the firm does act for employers and for employees in employment law generally. If what you need is someone in your corner rather than a neutral in the middle, say so at the outset and that is a normal instruction - or, where it is really about an exit, the right destination is settlementagreementsolicitor.ie.

Question 4

What kinds of workplaces does the practice mediate in?

Accepted Answer

Private sector employers of most sizes, professional practices, family businesses, semi-state and public sector bodies operating under Dignity at Work policies, and not-for-profits and boards. The situations recur regardless of sector: a reporting line that has broken down, two colleagues or two departments that have stopped cooperating, a dignity at work complaint where informal resolution is the right first step, a return to work after long absence or an investigation, and conflict among senior people where a formal process would be publicly destabilising. What varies is procedure - a heavily proceduralised public body needs a different design from a thirty-person company with no HR function.

Question 5

Where do workplace mediations take place?

Accepted Answer

Rarely at the workplace itself, which is worth saying because employers often assume otherwise: mediating in the building where the conflict lives tends to be counterproductive, since people are seen going into rooms and the whole floor knows by lunchtime. Neutral venues are usually better. Mediations are conducted at The Ormond Building on Ormond Quay in Dublin 7, at the firm’s Kilkenny office at 2 Rose Inn Street, at neutral venues anywhere in the country, on site where that genuinely suits, or fully online - which for workplace matters solves a specific problem, since an employee on sick leave or suspension often should not be asked to come into an office at all.

A Mediator Who Also Runs the Alternative

The Credential, and Why the Discipline Is Distinct

Neutral in the Room — and the Part Other Sites Leave Out

A Situation That Might Be Fixable?

Richard O’Shea — Solicitor & Mediator

About the Practice - FAQs