Family Mediation can be fast, and it can be furious…
The title of this post is somewhat tongue-in-cheek but I'm trying to convey an essential message: time seems to go by faster when you are mediating, and that can mean added stress.
When you attend family mediation with a lawyer, the sessions are generally either half-day or a full-day. This means that the mediator has that amount of time set aside to try and assist with settlement. The parties, their lawyers and the mediator interact during this period of time, focussing on the issues, and the possibility of finalizing them through dialogue and negotiation. I realize that several hours of time objectively sounds like a lot of time to deal with two issues, for example, but in my experience, many people who mediate feel hours are somehow shorter and time goes by faster. Why might that be?
Consider that during a typical mediation session conducted by shuttle-diplomacy, the mediator discusses the issues on the table with each side, being the party and their lawyer, and then each team generates a proposal which the mediator then takes to the other side. For the purposes of this discussion, who makes the first offer is irrelevant. The point to consider is the number of steps involved in an actual exchange of proposals, hopefully eventually generating an overall settlement on which both sides can agree. Even if some of the mediation is conducted with everyone in the same room or on the same screen (in the case of mediation by Zoom), the negotiations may take some time. Suddenly, even 5 hours do not seem to be enough time to get through everything, particularly if there are some snags along the way, some bottlenecks in the negotiations.
I do find that most participants in a family mediation are unprepared for the pace of the discussions, particularly as these are often slow at the start, and then accelerate in the second part of the session, when actual offers are exchanged. This is not a criticism by any means. It’s an observation based on my experience and also a commentary on all the ingredients that go into the mediation pot: emotions, feelings, the law, strategy, distrust, hope, stress, even anxiety, fear and much more. The very human stuff, all of it. In reality, the process of family mediation can be fast, and it can be furious too.
What steps can a party and their lawyer take to deal with this reality? First and foremost, prepare as much as you can. I have not yet met a human being who has a button to turn off their emotions – getting those under control is the tricky, if not impossible part, but there are other ways to prepare. Talk to your lawyer about the process. Read up on the process. Come prepared for a dialogue. Come prepared to compromise. Do not talk to your lawyer about a possible offer for the first time at the mediation. That would be a waste of everyone’s time, and perhaps most importantly, a waste of your time and money. When hours with the mediator are set aside for your case, use the mediator to do what they are trained to do – negotiate – and give her the tools to work with.
If you have any questions about our mediation services, please contact Carolyn and she will answer them for you.
©AJJakubowska
