Originally from Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation

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When you are mediating, don’t you just hate it when attorneys act as if they are arguing in court? Many mediators find this extremely disturbing. The good news is that there are some things you can do to make adversarial attorneys behave more cooperatively–indeed, as “quasi-mediators” described below.

I recently conducted an educational program, “How Can You Turn Adversarial Attorneys into Quasi- Mediators?” which functioned as a focus group. The program was sponsored by the St. Louis chapter of the Association of Attorney-Mediators (AAM), a national nonprofit professional organization based in Dallas. Nine members participated on Zoom, answering a series of questions in writing and conversation. I received responses from six or seven mediators to various questions. Data from this small non-random sample can’t be generalized but it is suggestive.