# Mediator: guiding a mediation to each party's agreement

> A mediation followed with each party: agreement to mediate accepted, meetings booked, confidential documents kept apart, draft settlement approved by each.

## A mediation, and documents each party shows only to you

Two business partners no longer agree on how one of them should leave. You get the agreement to mediate accepted, you book the meetings, and each of them sends you their documents: the articles of association and the shareholders' agreement, which both may read, but also a valuation of the shares or current account statements the other must not see. Everything arrives by email, sometimes with the wrong person copied in.

Between meetings, dates are worked out over the phone and the draft settlement goes round in several versions. When it is time to conclude, you have to find out who accepted which version, and when. Commercial and family mediation raise the same question.

## Each mediation has its own folder, with what each party entrusts to you

Each party has their own link, with no account, and can write to you or upload a document on their own initiative. You and your team share the folder, opened from the “Out-of-court mediation” template, with internal notes no party ever reads.

- **Agreement to mediate**: submitted for sign-off as soon as the folder opens. Each party approves it in their own name, with the date.
- **Shared documents**: articles of association, shareholders' agreement, latest annual accounts. Each document is requested from its owner and followed until it is uploaded, and both parties can read it.
- **Confidential documents**: you ask one party, confidentially, for what they want to show you alone. They upload their documents in reply; the other party sees neither the request nor the documents.
- **Joint meetings and private sessions**: you offer several slots, one is chosen and the calendar invitation goes out on confirmation. A private session is offered confidentially, to the one party it concerns.
- **Draft settlement**: submitted for sign-off to both parties. You see who has approved it and who has not yet.

A sign-off dates and names whoever gave it. It is a simple approval: it is not a qualified electronic signature and it does not make the settlement enforceable; the settlement is then signed as you usually do.

## What one party tells you, the other does not read

A [confidential](/en/features/document-confidentiality) post is read only by your team and the participants it names or mentions itself. A mention in a comment opens it to no one else, and someone added to the folder later does not catch up on it. Only your team posts confidentially: what a party wants to show you alone, they upload in reply to the confidential request you send them.

Your team reads the whole folder, internal notes included. The access log shows who viewed which document, and you can withdraw access at any time. Details are on the [Security and privacy](/en/security) page.

## Parties who know where the mediation stands

Each party sees what is waiting on their side. Reminders chase each document or approval still pending: two days before the due date, on the day, the day after, then seven days later. When the mediation ends, you close the folder: the agreement to mediate and the approved draft settlement, with their dates, remain available to your team and to each party for as long as the workspace exists, each according to what they could read.