Me As A Mediator…
It all begins with an idea.
In January, I had the honor of judging a part of a mediation competition for law students in the Western region of the United States. Pairs of students were given a test case to study and then they tasked with trying to mediate an agreement between them and another team.
The experience was a good one for a lot of reasons: One was that the test case given to the mediators was the real case of the Estate of Micheal Chrichton suing the production team for The Pitt. The estate believes that The Pitt is a spin off of ER and that Micheal Chrichton should be given creator credit and the estate should receive monetary compensation because he was the original creator of ER in 1994. The Pitt Producers disagree. I am a huge fan of both shows and it was fascinating to read the legal brief for the case.
The second reason the experience was good was because it was really interesting to see the way the law students formed their arguments and negotiated between themselves using the facts of the case. It was cool to see the way law schools teach mediation as an extension of the law and how formal the teams were with one another as they worked to reach an agreement.
The best part of the experience for me was that I got to see how different my style of mediation is from a typical lawyer led mediation. I saw, in real time, how my own Conflict Resolution and Restorative Justice rooted practice of mediation is relational, and personal, and places a value on working to find a resolution that is fair and that feels as good as it can for everyone involved.
The teams did an excellent job of negotiating, and they were well prepared, but in the end, only one team could prevail and that team has gone onto the national mediation competition! I wish them luck, but I know that they will do a great job. They are fabulous mediators.
They will never know this, but I thank them for helping to affirm what I know about my personal mediation style which is people and relationship centered and can get emotional at times. But that’s okay! I like that style and I like that people trust me enough to let me into their lives and to be honest and raw with me.
It’s why I do what I do.
"I have no idea why I just told you that!"
People say this to me after they've shared something deeply personal — and sometimes very funny. They don't know why they told me. But I do.
All my life, I've been told I have a face that looks non-judgmental, warm, and open. The kind of face that makes perfect strangers tell me their deepest, darkest secrets.
It's the face that makes lawyers choose me for their juries -- I have been selected two out of three times and that third case settled before we ever walked into the courtroom. It's the face that makes babies smile, wave, and occasionally hand me dandelions as gifts.
For a long time I thought it was weird that this happened to me. Then I realized it was a superpower. And when I became a mediator, everything clicked.
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When I first started mediating, my mentors were thorough, efficient, and genuinely incredible at what they did. But when I tried to mediate their way, something felt off. I could sense that the parties had more they wanted to say and I kept cutting them short because that's what I'd been taught. Brief opening statements. Time limits. Stay on track.
Even though I shortened my time (I thought). the feedback I got after co-mediations was consistent: I let people go on too long. Too many unnecessary details. I felt like I was back in elementary school when my teachers used to say that I was too talkative.
But I didn't think those details were unnecessary at all.
I've learned that the things people say as little asides and tangents, are often important clues to what they actually need. If I ask the right questions and give them enough space, they will tell me their real motivation. Not the position they walked in with, but that thing underneath it that really matters.
And what comes out in those moments is sacred.
Sometimes it's the heartbreak of losing someone who mattered to them before the conflict broke everything open. The friend, or spouse, or tenant who meant more to them than just a transaction. Sometimes it's a funny story from caucus about what the relationship was like before things fell apart. Sometimes it's pure frustration finally finding a voice and an outlet to let it all out. And sometimes it's something I genuinely wasn't expecting to hear.
Every single one of those stories is an honor to be trusted with.
With practice, I found the balance. I learned to let people say just enough — enough to feel truly heard and I learned to gently, but firmly, redirect comments that veer away from what will actually help us move forward. The feedback from clients has been positive. People tell me they felt like our time together was well spent.
Sometimes I even get hugs on the way out.
I have a face that makes people tell me their secrets. And that is an honor. The stories I hear are usually fabulous and uplifitng and I am grateful for people trusting me with them. I am lucky, though, to not be like my friend, Anne. People stop her to recite their original poetry to her.
I don't have a face that makes people recite their original poetry at me. And I am deeply grateful for that.