It wasn't actually John Huston's Treasure of the Sierra Madre, but Mel Brook's Blazing Saddles -- where he parodies the scene above -- in which the bandits famously said "we don't need no stinkin' badges." 

Are we just as confused about the role played by mediation providers?

This is what you hear from litigators:

I don't hire a mediation provider, I hire a mediator.

This is what you hear from mediators:

People don't hire me because I'm on the JAMS or ADR Services or Judicate West panels.  People hire me because they know me.

And yet, we are on ADR provider panels and they do provide us with business just as we provide them with our "book." 

I'm not going to deconstruct the misconceptions here, only to provide you with an excerpt from the address given by Elizabeth Birch transcribed here -- Meditation Providers No Longer Add Value -- courtesy of Geoff Sharp and The Political News You Need to Know. 

It provides just a few of the reasons you might want to call my ADR provider, and that of my colleagues Jay McCauley, Michael Young, and John Wagner, at Judicate West, the next time you want to schedule a mediation or arbitration. 

Administration

Now, here is the nub of the problem. Many of you feel that you don’t need your mediations administered … “I can do that myself. Why should I let a Mediation Provider take some of the mediation money, if I can do it myself?”

The Mediation Provider acts as an experienced independent broker between all the parties (and indeed the mediator). The Provider helps parties to select the best mediator for the dispute – no independent mediator can do this. . .

If you are a solicitor acting for a party, then you will spend much more of your client’s money trying to find a mediator and putting all of the arrangements in place than you would if you left it to those who do it every day.

But much more than that, it cannot be done as well. Each step that you take will often be resisted by the other party. The mediator that you put forward, will be tainted by the very fact that you put him or her forward. The other party will say to themselves:

“They must think that mediator is good for them, so we won’t agree that one”.

The smoothness of the lead up to the mediation reflects very substantially on the mood of the participants on the day and is a crucially important factor in the settlement of the dispute. I think it would be wrong to assume that the ease of the process on the day is not affected by what has gone on in setting up the mediation.

The single most important point, I believe, is that the Mediation Provider is in a position to act as independent broker and that allows them to guide the parties on matters that they would otherwise become dug in on as between themselves.

Very often, the case manager will be performing what I have described as a pre-mediation mediation to get the dispute to mediation and I do think that most parties and most mediators underestimate the difficulty of that task and the skill that is brought to bear in performing it.

Mediation Providers monitor performance/handle complaints

Mediation Providers receive feed-back forms. They monitor the build-up of experience with each individual mediator. The Mediator then gets to know the nature of the feedback without the embarrassment of needing to be told directly by the party concerned. This allows the mediator to address the issues and move forward. A good administrator knows the various characteristics and attributes of a large number of mediators and can guide the parties towards the best appointment as a result of the positive feedback.