Forum Overview :: Dead Trees :: Re: going into business as a Mediator

[quote name="Mischief Maker"][quote name="jeep"]I don't know anything about lawyering v mediating or whatever. California is a big lawyer playground so you may as well come out here to try it. No reason not to ask around if regular lawyers don't have their own mediator maybe they'd like to have one on-call I assume you mean mediation like as a written step in contract dispute resolution?[/quote] Well Mediation is one of the big 3 forms of alternative dispute resolution out there right now. There's direct negotiation between the parties, there's arbitration (judge judy play-court with binding decisions), and then there's mediation. The point of mediation is for the parties to use the interest-based negotiation method, a superior alternative to the standard haggling method everyone knows. It's faster, makes for smarter decisions, can lead to win-win solutions, and won't harm any existing relationship between the parties. The downside is it's really complex compared to haggling, and just keeping the method running smoothly is a job in itself, besides actually looking out for your own interests. Hence the need for a 3rd party neutral Mediator to guide the parties through the negotiation process while they put their full attention on <A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIX0ZDqDljA" TARGET="new">getting what they want</A>. The thing with California is, because of their state budget problems over the past years, money for courts has been tight and waiting lists have been getting longer and longer. Businesses began turning to ADR and it's turned out to be a big hit, so there's a mature mediation market there. Here in Wisconsin the mediation industry is very much in its infancy, though in a twisted kind of fortune for me, that could change if Walker isn't recalled, or if Barrett and the democrats pull an Obama and never get around to undoing Walker's budget. I'd rather stay in Wisconsin because global warming has been much kinder to us over the past years than the rest of the country. Another term for "thinking like a lawyer" is "functional pessimism." [quote name="jeep"]I have always wondered how people get those jobs. Like what do you go through with someone where he's like "yeah I'd trust this person to guide a dispute over $1M in payments to resolution in a fair way"[/quote] You start by volunteering and getting an assuring number of cases under your belt, then you do partial mediations, like mediating a mutually agreeable discovery plan between the parties in a civil case, then move on to full case mediations, like divorce and child custody dispute, then finally you gain a strong enough reputation that people trust you in the $1M+ corporate contract cases. Or you become a judge, get fired, and gain the coveted "retired judge" status which automatically gives you cred. Grr...[/quote]