Pictured: Pramila Meghani

Midlands law firm Challinors has launched a specialist service dedicated to providing professional mediation services across its range of legal advice for individuals and businesses.

Challinors Mediation Services is led by Associate Pramila Meghani, an experienced mediator and specialist family lawyer, and is designed to deliver sensitive, speedy and economical resolutions to family and business disputes, according to the firm.

Pramila works alongside Challinors extensive team of mediators that includes Partners Peter McHugh, Nigel Sellar and Peter Lowe, and the firm's senior partner Paul Griffiths.

"Our new service consolidates all aspects and types of mediation involving disputing parties, to bring them together with the aid of a highly skilled, independent third party to discuss and determine a means of settlement," explains Pramila.

"The objective is to reach a mutual agreement without the cost, delay and intimidating circumstances of court proceedings, by providing a 'safe space', where frank discussions and detailed exploration of the implications of all solutions can be assessed."

Mediation is suitable in a number of disputes, says Pramila: "Disagreements can often reach deadlock, and mediation is a valuable tool under these circumstances. Our specialist skill and service can be utilised for disputes over marital asset provisions prior to and during divorce, inheritance disputes, parenting issues, as well as business situations where ongoing relationship between parties may be just as important as the sums of money involved, perhaps during the splitting of a company's management, or in employer, employee relationship or landlord and tenant conflicts."

According to Challinors, its team is well-placed to offer a high quality, relevant and sensitive mediation service that is swift and cost-effective and saves on stress, lengthy legal proceedings and high fees.

"The legal system now generally expects parties to have been considered mediation prior to entering into litigation," comments Pramila. "This is particularly true of new measures introduced by the government in April this year, concerning separating or divorcing couples, mediation is something they must consider before proceeding to court.

"It makes sense for individuals to evaluate the role a mediator could play in assisting in resolving a dispute, well before resorting to court."

Pramila Meghani is a specialist family lawyer and family mediator with over 25 years experience. She is a member of Law Society Mediation Panel, National Family Mediation, and a member of Resolution - the national organisation of family lawyers committed to non-confrontational resolution in divorce, separation and other family issues and is a trained collaborative lawyer.

Peter McHugh, a Partner in Challinors' construction team, is a Chartered Arbitrator and experienced Accredited Mediator within dispute resolution, and a specialist in professional negligence claims within the construction industry. He has acted as Mediator in over sixty mediations including in the original pilot scheme run by the Birmingham County Court. He has over twenty two years hands-on experience of dispute resolution for construction and commercial property issues for a range of organisations, from PLC's to small to medium enterprises, across a spectrum of settlement values. Peter has grade 'A' status with the ADR group and is a Director of Parle, a specialist mediation Company for Construction disputes.

A specialist Clinical Negligence solicitor and Partner at Challinors, Nigel Sellar has over 27 years PQE including more than seventeen years in Clinical Negligence, with twelve years hands on mediation predominately in the areas of Personal Injury, Clinical Negligence and Professional Indemnity. 

The new Challinors Mediation Service is available through the firm's network of offices in Birmingham, West Bromwich and Nottingham. 

Challinors firm has offices in Birmingham, West Bromwich, Wolverhampton, Halesowen and Nottingham. It has 18 partners and over 100 fee earners, and is ranked as one of the top legal firms in the West Midlands - The firm is Number 1 in the Chambers UK Directory in a number of categories, including Fraud, Business Defence, and Clinical Negligence. The firm's Family Law team received top tier, Band 1 ranking in the latest, 2010, Legal 500 Directory and is ranked in Band 2 of the Chambers UK Directory.