Download the FREE special report from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, Mediation Secrets for Better Business Negotiations: Top Techniques from Mediation Training Experts, and you will discover mediation techniques for selecting the right mediator, understand the mediation process and learn how to engage the mediator to ensure a good outcome.

professional mediator

What is a Professional Mediator?

When negotiators can’t come to agreement but want to avoid an expensive, time-consuming, and potentially rancorous lawsuit, a professional mediator is often their most logical choice.

In mediation, a professional mediator assists disputants in working together to craft a resolution that each side values. Mediators encourage parties to share information about their positions and explore innovative means of coming together.

A professional mediator brings a number of benefits to the dispute-resolution process. To begin with, mediation strategies prompt disputants to be proactive about finding a solution to their shared problem. By brainstorming and collaborating, parties in conflict often strengthen their relationship during mediation and are better equipped to work together in the future.

We tend to think mediation processes are all alike, but in fact, a professional mediator may follow different approaches depending on the type of conflict they are dealing with.

For example, standing in direct contrast to facilitative mediation is evaluative mediation, a type of mediation in which a professional mediator is more likely to make recommendations and suggestions. Instead of focusing primarily on the underlying interests of the parties involved, evaluative mediators may be more likely to help parties assess the legal merits of their arguments and make fairness determinations. Evaluative mediation is most often used in court-mandated mediation, and evaluative mediators are often attorneys who have legal expertise in the area of the dispute.

Mediation is often thought of as a last step to adjudicate disputes. But there are advantages of using mediation early in the process to solve problems and reach voluntary compliance agreements.

To learn more, download your complimentary copy of our report, Mediation Secrets for Better Business Negotiations: Top Techniques from Mediation Training Experts. We will send you a download link to your copy of the report and notify you by email when we post new advice and information on mediation to our website.

 

 

The following items are tagged professional mediator:

Mediation Training: What Can You Expect?

Posted by & filed under Mediation.

Organizations have long recognized the value of hiring professional mediators to help resolve disputes. More and more, managers have begun to also see value in securing mediation training for themselves and their employees. Although there are times when the services of an unbiased, professional mediator are needed, there may also be instances in which employees … Read More 

Types of Mediation: Choose the Type Best Suited to Your Conflict

Posted by & filed under Mediation.

When parties involved in a serious conflict want to avoid a court battle, there are types of mediation can be an effective alternative. In mediation, a trained mediator tries to help the parties find common ground using principles of collaborative, mutual-gains negotiation. We tend to think mediation processes are all alike, but in fact, mediators … Read More 

Teaching Mediation: Exercises to Help Students Acquire Mediation Skills

Posted by & filed under Teaching Negotiation.

Often, disputing parties are unable achieve satisfactory or sustainable outcomes on their own through direct negotiation, and require the assistance of a mediator or facilitator. Mediators can help parties involved in a dispute through examining the issues at hand, uncovering the parties’ underlying interests, and identifying creative solutions. To act as mediator requires a great … Read More 

Download Your Next Mediation Video

Posted by & filed under Teaching Negotiation.

Use Video Examples to Teach Your Students to Become Better Mediators Parties engaged in disputes are often unable to reconcile their differences alone, or fail to reach outcomes that are adequate for everyone. Mediators can add a great deal of value by helping parties to efficiently and effectively examine the issues at hand, take the interests … Read More 

Plan Your Curriculum for Next Semester

Posted by & filed under Teaching Negotiation.

How do we utilize lessons learned from teaching online when returning to the classroom and planning a curriculum? After more than a year of remote learning, students and teachers alike are eager to return to classrooms in the fall. During the pandemic, however, many instructors made significant investments in online teaching resources, lesson plans, and … Read More 

Conflict Negotiation Skills for Ending Partnerships Peacefully

Posted by & filed under Conflict Resolution.

The process of dissolving a partnership can be wrenching, whether the split is undertaken by a couple, business partners, or an organization. But as many real-life examples of conflict resolution show, there are proven ways to calm the turmoil that often accompanies partnership dissolutions and set parties up for a hopeful future. Among conflict resolution … Read More 

Negotiating organizational breakups

Posted by & filed under Dealmaking.

For decades, the United Methodist Church (UMC) has grappled with internal disagreement over its doctrine on LGBTQ rights, which prohibits same-sex marriage and noncelibate gay clergy. Methodists in the United States, who comprise more than half of the church’s 12.5 million members, increasingly have found those positions untenable, particularly after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized … Read More 

Mandated Mediation: What to Expect

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More and more companies are inserting alternative dispute resolution (ADR) clauses in their contracts with customers and vendors—and even, in some cases, in agreements with their own employees. ADR clauses can be beneficial for all concerned if it means avoiding the cost, delay, and uncertainty of going to court. Mandated mediation, in particular, may offer … Read More 

When Conflict Becomes a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Skills.

When one party brings up the possibility of a lawsuit in a business dispute, the threat can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yet business negotiators often benefit from settling their disputes before going to court, write Robert H. Mnookin, Scott R. Peppet, and Andrew S. Tulumello in their book Beyond Winning: Negotiating to Create Value in … Read More 

Deal Design: Strategies for Complex Dealmaking

Posted by & filed under Dealmaking.

As experienced negotiators well know, the more parties involved in a negotiation, the more difficult it often is to come to agreement, due in part to the logistical challenge of making sure each voice is heard. Yet multiparty negotiation offers considerable benefits. Most notably more opportunities for making tradeoffs and creating value in negotiation than … Read More 

Mediating Better Community Relations in New Orleans

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On May 14, Susan Hutson, the independent police monitor for the city of New Orleans brought together community stakeholders and police officials to help formulate a program that would allow police officers and citizens to mediate minor disagreements, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports. Aided by a professional mediator, citizens and officers would sit face to … Read More 

How Mediation Works

Posted by & filed under Dispute Resolution.

When negotiators can’t come to agreement but want to avoid an expensive, time-consuming, and potentially rancorous lawsuit, mediation is often their most logical choice. Mediation can help to resolve a wide range of disputes. … Read More 

How Your Organization Can Benefit from Mediation Techniques

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If you manage people, disputes will show up at your door. The marketing VP protests that the budget cap you and your new finance VP proposed is hindering a research initiative you supported. Two young sales representatives are embroiled in a turf war. Your administrative assistant is upset because the HR director won’t approve the … Read More 

In Business Negotiations, Set the Stage for Success

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations.

In negotiation, it’s said, preparation is key. Without careful research and logistical planning, we may be left trying to skate by on wits and charm alone—and in today’s business world, they will seldom carry us far. Advance work is especially critical when you expect your talks to be complex, involving numerous issues, multiple parties, and plenty … Read More 

How to win at win-win negotiation

Posted by & filed under Win-Win Negotiations.

When parties to a negotiation can’t seem to find common ground, it sometimes seems as if the only solution is “winner take all.” Consider the decade-long campaign by the backers of the Cape Wind project to build the first offshore wind farm in the United States off the coast of Massachusetts in Nantucket Sound. Led by … Read More 

Leaving millions on the table

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It’s hard to imagine a situation in which negotiating counterparts would choose to sacrifice hundreds of millions of dollars rather than reach agreement. But this is the choice that New York City and its teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), made in January when they declared impasse on a new teacher evaluation system. Back … Read More 

Rare video of a small-claims mediation

Posted by & filed under Daily, Mediation.

Negotiation Pedagogy at the Program on Negotiation (NP@PON) produced a video of an actual landlord-tenant small claims mediation – from start to finish, including side-bar conversations – for its 2009 Mediation Pedagogy Conference. It is rare that an actual (as opposed to staged or acted) mediation is available for instructional purposes. Of the many different … Read More