For a creative sector like PR, the sting of a commercial dispute can be far more personal than other industries.

Creative work is fundamentally different from other commercial or transactional services. It's not just a transfer of value between seller and buyer, it’s a collaboration rooted in abstract ideas like trust or vision; and with emotional investment by both parties.

When these relationships fracture, the impact is felt deeply, beyond what the numbers will tell you.

At the heart of every successful campaign is a dialogue. Clients place immense faith in their creative partners to understand their ambition, interpret their wishes and push boundaries while still delivering commercially viable results. It's an exploratory process that involves vulnerability, exploration and emotional capital.

When a project derails, it’s rarely just about invoices or deadlines. Often, it feels like a betrayal. For the client, there may be disappointment or frustration at not feeling heard or understood. For the agency, the breakdown can feel like a dismissal of their creative integrity and the care they poured into the work.

This emotional intensity can cloud decisions and escalate tensions quickly.

It’s tempting after a dispute reaches boiling point to say, “see you in court”. But, the law is set up to be adversarial and a judge is limited to imposing a strictly financial settlement.

Sometimes even the most acrimonious dispute can be cut down to size by mediation. This is about adopting an approach rooted in helping two sides understand each other rather than face each other in court. It focuses not on who is more to blame for the past but which looks at what each wants now.

Civil mediation is not an easy ride for either side. It is a structured way to avoid the immense cost and distraction of court proceedings by focusing on agreement rather than dragging over the past to apportion blame.

Each year in the UK around 25,000 disputes are settled by mediation and 87% of them settle on the day or within a day or two. Compare that with the months or even years for a case to come to court , along with two sets of legal fees.

In just a few hours of focused work, months of two sides firing ever more terse emails at one other are ended and replaced with a settlement that both can sign up to. It need not be a financial settlement. It need not even mean the end of the working partnership.

Unlike traditional legal proceedings, structured mediation offers a space for dialogue rather than confrontation. Mediation is communication.

It focuses on mutual understanding and resolution, rather than blame and retribution. When the mediator is fluent in the language of the PR world, they are in the strongest position to help the parties get into the real issues that lie between the lines of a contract or email.

Working with both parties jointly and in private, a PR-savvy mediator can identify these undercurrents and guide both sides toward proposing a solution.

This isn’t about apportioning fault or adjudicating in any legal sense, it’s about uncovering the emotional truths that often go unspoken but drive the conflict forward. Once these are crystallised by careful, well informed questioning, genuine resolution becomes possible.

Importantly, mediation can be a creative process in itself. It can involve reframing problems, exploring new possibilities for collaboration and imagining alternative outcomes not available to a judge.

When approached with care and the insight of really understanding how the PR sector operates, mediation can lead to solutions that not only address the commercial concerns but also rebuild trust and reaffirm shared values. It can be the start of a renewed partnership, rather than the end of a failed one.

With the right mediator, these conversations can lead to deeper alignment, more robust working relationships, and even new ways of collaborating that neither party had previously considered.

In an industry where relationships are everything, that kind of outcome isn’t just desirable it’s invaluable.