Hey Apple! Knife!
Mediation, by its very concept, is a collaborative process — one in which people are expected to collaborate together in pursuit of resolution. Wanna take a guess what runs counter to this concept? Being annoying.
Recently, on the JAMS Blog, mediator David Ross wrote about an informal survey he took amongst other mediators. The mediators were asked to rank, on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is “very annoying”), their top three annoying behaviors seen during mediations. The results:
Important Person with Settlement Authority is “Unreachable” — 8.50/10;
Hyper-aggressive attorney — 7.25/10; and
Lack of Preparation — 6.83/10.
The first one is logical. “It’s super-annoying because the person’s unavailability makes settlement that day impossible, creating an unnecessary impasse that can prove hard to overcome once mediation momentumis lost,” said one of the responding mediators.
The second one is more intriguing, though. A hyper-aggressive attorney usually signals a lack of genuine interest in the mediation process and/or settlement. And the energy consumed dealing with such belligerent conduct would be far better spent — by attorney and mediator, alike — trying to find creative ways to resolve the dispute.
The last one is a pet peeve, particularly given its prevalence. “Poor preparation annoys mediators because it slows down the mediation process, makes it more difficult to conduct a principled and merit-based discussion about settlement value and limits opportunities to identify creative solutions. In other words, it undermines the core goals of any mediation.” Attorneys who can prepare properly (counseling the client about mediation, acknowledging strengths and weakness and prioritizing the client’s goals coming into mediation) are giving their clients the best chance possible for a quick and effective resolution.
To read more about this, click here.
