Do you want to be a mediator? I encourage it! Few things in the legal profession are more satisfying than helping two or more adverse parties achieve a settlement, closing the books on litigation, and moving on. In cases with strong emotional underpinnings, successful settlement can be transformational for parties and neutral alike. The good news is that if you want to cut your teeth as a mediator, you can begin gaining experience quite early, even in law school. However, the road is longer and circuitous if you want to incorporate mediation into your law practice and charge clients for it.
There are many emerging positives as mediation continues to mature. In its early years, mediators were restricted to a pretty exclusive club of retired judges working within a limited number of mediation institutions. The current landscape has changed dramatically. Private mediators include hosts of freelancers who are unaffiliated with any mediation mega-firm, and having worn a robe is no longer a prerequisite to success as a mediator.
If you are reading this and still in law school, with some control over remaining electives, find out what your law school offers. Many law schools provide alternative dispute resolution clinics with opportunities to participate as mediators in a faculty-supervised setting.
I had the opportunity to interview Erin E. Gleason Alvarez, Director of the Mediation Practicum at Amelia A. Gould Representation in Mediation Clinic at Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University.
A key component of the mediation practicum is real-world experience in small claims courts throughout New York City. Professor Gleason Alvarez shared her insights on the value of such experience:
Small Claims Court is a fantastic place to cut your teeth as a mediator because you’re dealing with primarily pro se parties and, for the most part, 100 percent emotional issues—they are monetary disputes, but you can see the emotional interests almost immediately. It is incredible to see the students handle this in a way that is poised and thoughtful and shows concern for these individuals.
As to building the skill set to mediate, Professor Gleason Alvarez believes that it begins with developing as a litigator:
First, you need to know the practice and understand how litigation works. There’s a long road ahead, but you can take your time with it. Make a plan—it can even be over the next ten years. Figure out what area of the law makes sense for you, and focus on that as an area in which you will eventually mediate.
Preaching to this choir, she also recommends early and active involvement in bar associations, like the ABA and local bar association. The aspiring mediator can use these associations for networking, collaboration, and authorship opportunities. Prof. Gleason Alvarez emphasized the distinction between being active in these associations as opposed to just signing up, and your author could not agree more.
Like most volunteer organizations, the ABA TIPS Dispute Resolution Committee always looks for activist members and authorship opportunities abound. Collaborating with an experienced mediator for an article or podcast is a matter of signing on and taking the initiative.
My friend and fellow St. Johns’s Law alum Courtney Chicvak is a rare example of someone who focused like a laser on building a career as a mediator directly from law school. She is the founder and owner of Courtney Anne Chicvak Mediation and Coaching LLC and the Director of Alternative Dispute Resolution Training and Development, EAC Network, and LI Dispute Resolution Center. She offered this advice to aspiring mediators in the New York area, but parallels abound in other states and court systems.
After taking basic mediation training, many expressed frustrations that they could not mediate because all programs ask for previous mediation experience. To bridge the gap between training and joining a court-annexed roster, Community Dispute Resolution Centers offer mediation apprenticeship programs that allow newly trained mediators to gain practical experience. For new mediators, an apprenticeship provides “training wheels to gain experience in a structured environment. For example, the Long Island Dispute Resolution Centers apprenticeship program offers 12 hours of coached role plays to supplement the learning from basic mediation training. After the classroom component, individuals will work on actual cases in small claims court and community cases referred to the centers. Paired with veteran mediators, apprentices will observe three mediations, co-mediate five mediations with a veteran mediator, and complete three final solo evaluated mediations. The apprenticeship includes debriefing and feedback for new mediators to improve.
After a mediation apprenticeship, Community Dispute Resolution Centers offer additional volunteer opportunities to build a casework portfolio for mediation and advanced training and experiences. Many of our volunteers join the centers to develop their casework experience and show potential individuals considering hiring them that they are experienced mediators. While volunteering, many individuals will have separate jobs where they can continue to make money while volunteering as a mediator.
Following up on Erin and Courtney’s thoughtful advice, I add a few thoughts and reflections from my own ongoing process of building a mediation practice—a process I started in 2011 and is only now beginning to become a significant portion of my law practice.
Let me begin with a broad stroke. Building a mediation practice is extremely reputational. Before meditating a case from “the center seat,” you must build a reputation for ethics and professionalism. Some of my mediation clients are former adversaries and co-defendants. I don’t think they would be entrusting a mediation with me had I not treated them ethically and professionally when “crossing swords.” In sum, no one wants to mediate before a jerk.
As the preceding implies, absent time, experience, and reputation, hanging out a shingle as a mediator is unlikely to yield immediate results, and neither is the snazziest website with every potential tweak for search engine optimization. It is more of slowly rolling the snowball down the hill and gathering momentum.
Another problem for the aspiring mediator is the likely need for more mentorship within the typical law firm environment. Few law firms have a career or partner track for a mediator, so an active interest in this career endgame may not be nurtured. There are exceptions, but receptiveness to the long track to becoming a mediator while working in a private firm is more the exception than the rule.
Building a career in mediation began about ten years after opening my own firm and 21 years into my legal career. At the time, I had the amazing good fortune to be among the last Mediators trained internally by the US District Court for the Southern District of New York and to be admitted to its mediation panel. SDNY also trained me in new areas of the law, such as § 1983 Civil Rights Actions and Employment Discriminations. Both of these classes of litigation are on the SDNY mandatory mediation track. SDNY-referred cases, in which the parties chose to mediate at their option, have included aviation, personal injury, product liability, and insurance coverage—cases more in my practical wheelhouse.
Although I have been pleased of late to receive referrals from clients with whom I have not previously mediated, I can trace most of my private mediations to court-annexed mediations and relationships built therein. Mediating these cases is its own reward. Yet, a very pleasant side effect is building a reputation, a resume of completed mediations, and the potential for that prized call inquiring about your availability for private mediation.
Another route to advancing a mediation career is continuing to offer value to potential mediation clients. This may consist of articles, podcasts, presentations, and CLEs, from which clients begin to associate you with mediation and mediation skills. Again, one path to such opportunities is your bar associations, including the ABA.
I have utilized Sections and Committees within the ABA to help launch my name into aviation litigation, my primary field of litigation practice, and serve my mediation aspirations. I am the current Chair of the ABA TIPS Section’s Dispute Resolution Committee. While working my way into this position, I lost count of articles written, presentations given, panels moderated, and meetings hosted. And, not too subtly, this article is but another step in keeping my name on display as an available mediator. Once published, I will send a blast email with the link and add it to my LinkedIn page. It never stops.
If you want to be a mediator, make a plan. Find avenues to build your skills and resume through bar associations like the ABA and others. See what your state, including cities and town courts, requires to become a mediator in their court-annexed programs. Don’t look down at small claims court as a proving ground. You will be building skills that are transferable to any forum. Be patient and maintain the highest standards of professional integrity. Yes, you, too, can be a mediator!
