Preparing for Mediation

Prepare your clients well in advance of the mediation, to give your discussion time to percolate.

Meet a minimum of one week before the date to cover these topics:

How the mediation process works
The role of the mediator
The need for compromise
The realistic strengths and weaknesses of your case
The likely range of settlement offers
The vagaries of litigation and the fact that the outcome after a trial is highly unpredictable
The emotional impact

That in a trial:

The jury will be no smarter than a coffee shop crowd
The judge will probably not be an expert in the subject matter of the litigation
It will be more emotionally taxing than a mediation

All privacy will be lost. If the client is underreporting their taxes, abusing drugs or alcohol or cheating on their spouse, the other side is likely to find out about it and may try to introduce this as evidence. Regardless of whether the information is admitted as evidence at trial, it may harm a party‘s non-litigation interests.

Every trial has a winner and a loser, a fact that seems lost on some lawyers and clients. If an airline announced at pre-boarding that the airplane had a 50 percent chance of crashing, no sane person would board. Yet plaintiffs and defendants seem strangely eager to face similar odds at trial. For more, see page 26 of this article in the October 2012 issue of The Litigator magazine or watch this video.

Preparing plaintiffs for mediation | Frank Gomberg

Gomberg Mediation Solutions Inc.

70 Bond Street, Suite 200
Toronto, ON M5B 1X3
Canada

OFFICE: 416.865.5323
FAX: 416.365.7702

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