Mediation Advocacy

Mediation Advocacy is the technique of presenting and arguing a client's position, needs and interests in a non-adversarial way. It recognises the following:

  1. the negotiated outcome to a dispute is usually more satisfying, more effective, more workable, more flexible and more durable than an order imposed by a court or other tribunal.
  2. the parties to a dispute should control its process and its outcome.
  3. the parties to a dispute should be assisted by their professional representatives or advisers in coming to a settlement that both deals with all matters in issue and also meets their true needs and wider interests
  4. parties to a dispute should have regard to helping the opposite party secure its needs while at the same time preserving their own.

Lawyers who understand and master the skills of mediation advocacy are far more successful than lawyers who conduct themselves as trial advocates in the ADR environment. The mediation paradigm brightly spotlights the client’s role as key decision-maker and the mediator’s job as neutral facilitator in the process. Yet, surprisingly little attention is given to educating lawyers to be effective mediation advocates and the very practical fact that they remain the driving force in any mediation proceeding. The objective of this article is to inform and persuade the successful trial lawyer to develop the necessary skills to be a successful mediation lawyer.

Literature: The 9 Principles of Very Successful Mediating Lawyers By Steven L. Schwartz