MINI-TRIAL
In Mini-Trial it is asked to a neutral person assisting to the synthetic presentation of the juridical arguments of each part about the legal basis of own position and the documents available to support it, as if it would happen in front of a judge.
In other words, a trial is simulated.
On the base than thus emerged, the neutral person - always in an absolutely confidential context - will express an appraisal on the positions assumed from each part. These last ones will be let free to accept or less such appraisal.
Often, in order to strengthen the effectiveness of mini-trial when the dispute involved companies with organizational structure complex inner, it is called to assist to the exposure a college formed from a neutral person and one manager of each part, who has not participated to the facts and who has the power to bind his society by means of an agreement. In such circumstances, the managers thus been involved they will have the possibility to form an independent opinion on the case, being able some to obtain a total and not conditioned vision from partial or intentionally negligent presentations, as it would probably happen instead if they came informed on the argument only from inner sources to their respective company.
In Mini-Trial therefore the presentation of the positions of the two parties serves to define a space for a negotiation from each other.
In its more common version, Mini-Trial simulates the solution that the judge or the arbitrator, in a real trial cause, would give to the dispute. So parties can realize it, without starting a long and expensive dispute in front of a court.
Mini-Trial second version consists essentially in – always – confidential procedure for the exchange of information and the presentation of the arguments (above all technical). It is a more formal system regarding the mediation/conciliation but more flexible and more express regarding the judgment.
At the light of its specific technical experience and competence on the matters from which the dispute arises, the neutral person not only can evaluate the proofs carried by each party against the other, but he can also answer to specific technical questions placed of common agreement from both parties or by each one separately. Here the role of the expert comes particularly in relief.
An element must be emphasized: in estimating jointly the tests, the technical and factual elements, carried in the Mini-Trial by each party, both of them in reality carry out a negotiation that can lead with rapidity and saving of costs to a reasonable solution.
Such solution leaves little space to disquisitions of legal character concentrating itself, instead, on the force of the factual elements.
Consequently, such A.D.R. system represents an appropriate solution for disputes having high technical content (e.g.: the correct working of a complex machine). The neutral person must be a really competent and high qualified technician, chosen by both parties or by a neutral institution. Anyway, all question posed to such person will be formulated not by the judge (who can know noting about the technical critical issues related to the specific dispute), but by the same parts helped from their lawyers or the lawyer of the neutral institution that has chosen the expert).
All always done in a view concentrated to the target to conciliate the dispute and not to judge it.
WWN MINI - TRIAL RULES
