Mediators! What Your Clients May REALLY Be Thinking
I'm attaching a Policyholders Guide to Mediation not because it's particularly useful in regard to the strategy and tactics necessary to be a successful mediation advocate, but to share with my fellow mediators just how low an opinion many litigators have of us.
Notice on page 2 (Mediation Downsides) the following:
- mediator may inappropriately discourage/scare the policyholder to force a settlement
- mediator may "tell insurance company things you ask them to keep secret" (!!!)
- mediator may have a financial stake in keeping the insurance company happy
Thanks to policyholder counsel extraordinaire Stephen Goldberg of Dickstein Shapiro for passing this along to me.
Comments (5)
Read through and enter the discussion by using the form at the endColm Brannigan - March 4, 2009 6:27 PM
Thanks for posting this. With this kind of "publicity", no wonder clients are not beating on mediators doors!!
I hope the California mediation community does something about "mediator may "tell insurance company things you ask them to keep secret" (!!!)"
Chris - March 4, 2009 9:50 PM
I'm not sure what to say other than shake my head and laugh.
My favorite (after the aforementioned BS) is the false dichotomy between "Professional Mediator" and "Court Appointed Mediator" as if the two are mutually exclusive. I'd like to think of myself as both.
Diane Levin - March 5, 2009 10:12 AM
Vickie, I guess you didn't see my post on "what trial lawyers really think of mediators":
http://mediationchannel.com/2009/03/04/what-old-school-trial-lawyers-really-think-about-mediators/
And to think that last week I declared a cease-fire between lawyers and mediators.
Vickie - March 5, 2009 10:29 AM
I DID miss it Diane. Thanks for sending the link! We'll have to keep working on this, i.e., engaging lawyers in a conversation about collaborative mediation processes being more effective, efficient and durable than competitive negotiation models. A lifetime job I imagine.
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