Attorney at Law Magazine First Coast sat down with Fadi Chakour, a Florida Supreme Court certified civil circuit mediator with ADRsource, to discuss his career. Chakour began as a medical doctor who left medicine to practice law. He worked for a large defense firm as well as a plaintiffs’ firm. He draws on his medical expertise and legal abilities to serve as an effective mediator in all types of personal injury disputes, particularly those involving medical malpractice and complex medical and/or legal issues.
AALM: What benefits do you believe mediation offers clients and attorneys alike?
FC: In addition to being an alternative to protracted and often expensive litigation, one of the most important benefits mediation offers is the opportunity for litigants to shape and tailor the outcome and solution of their case, instead of six complete strangers doing so at trial. Mediation is an opportunity for the parties and their attorneys to avoid the risk of an adverse verdict at trial.
AALM: What experiences in your career have taught you the most?
FC: Before becoming a mediator, I was a partner at a prestigious plaintiff’s personal injury firm. Before that, I practiced at one of Florida’s largest defense firms. My practice at both firms concentrated on medical malpractice and nursing home negligence litigation. Practicing on both sides taught me a lot and gave me invaluable insight as to how and why decisions are made by both sides during mediation.
AALM: What are some of the biggest flaws you see in the legal system and how would you propose they be corrected?
FC: One of the biggest flaws in the legal system in Florida is the limited judicial resources available to litigants, which leads to case backlogs as judges do not have enough time to move cases faster. This, as expected, adds more pressure on the litigants and their lawyers who want to see a faster end to the case.
AALM: What is the best compliment you’ve received?
FC: The best compliment I received as a lawyer is that impressed by what I did and do every day for my clients, my daughter decided to become a lawyer. She is currently in law school. This is the best compliment any lawyer can receive.
AALM: What do you find most rewarding in your day-to-day work as a mediator?
FC: Mediation for me is an opportunity to do something really good. Mediation is like a ceasefire or a time-out from litigation. It is very rewarding for a mediator to turn the ceasefire into a permanent peace and end the litigation.
AALM: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
FC: I believe that mediation is not just a skill, but also an art. The tools that worked well in the last mediation, may not work well in the next. Accordingly, every mediator should learn from each success or failure to innovate new tools, or modify the old ones, to suit a particular dispute.
For more information, visit adrsource.com.
