Category: Mediation Tips

Unlike trial courts, which operate under elaborate procedural rules, mediation has no formal procedural requirements – just a few customary procedures, e.g., joint opening sessions,

Parties usually begin positional money bargaining from extreme positions known as anchors to show confidence in their cases and to manipulate the midpoint of the

A timely link or bracket move, e.g., “We’ll increase our offer to $X, if you reduce your demand to $Y,” is a potent negotiating tool

In traditional sit-down mediations a party can sometimes gain an unfair negotiating advantage by having its representative participate by phone, or in person, but lacking

In theory, early mediation is the quickest, most cost-efficient way to resolve a dispute. The problem, however, is that until there has been sufficient discovery,

Although mediations are private, informal proceedings, observing the Rules of Professional Conduct governing lawyers is no less obligatory than at a hearing or trial. Lawyers

Most successful mediations result in parties agreeing that one will pay the other an agreed sum. When the parties cannot agree on the amount, however,

Negotiating parties naturally focus on their own needs and pay far less attention to the needs of their adversaries. This bias toward its own needs

We tend to think of a mediation as successful where the parties reach a complete agreement at the mediation conference and as unsuccessful where they

A defendant will often find itself unable to pay in a lump sum the amount needed to settle. Happily, to obtain a sufficient settlement a