Jeff Carey is an accredited mediator with advanced training in facilitative and transformative mediation practices. He believes that the mediator’s focus should be on creating the atmosphere and process for the parties to explore their interests and make the best decision for their future. While the jury trial is the best system ever invented to reach a just outcome for disputes that cannot be otherwise resolved, it is imperfect, risky, and resource consuming. If your case can be settled, it should be settled.
Jeff has extensive litigation experience including business dissolutions, trade secrets, non-competes, professional E&O (architects, engineers, and realtors), employment discrimination, management-labor disputes, contract disputes, securities litigation, auto accidents, premises liability, medical malpractice, dental malpractice, legal malpractice, products liability, and mass torts. He has lectured nationally with NBI on claims negotiation, bad faith insurance litigation, wrongful death litigation, and automobile accident litigation.
These are some mediation lessons Jeff learned over the decades and hundreds of mediations he has been involved with as an attorney or mediator:
- No one wants to listen to long personal stories from a person they are paying by the hour.
- A mediation is not a settlement conference. If the parties believe that you are only exchanging numbers for them, they don’t need you. Though mediation is voluntary and coercion is inappropriate, the mediator should use their skills and experience to actively create an environment where perspectives can shift and settlement can occur.
- The mediator should refrain from assuming the role of legal advisor to the litigants. Evaluation of the merits of the case should only be done at the request of the attorney. The parties did not hire you to be their lawyer or to judge their case, they hired you to mediate their case.
- Though there is a time and a place for ensuring that the litigants understand the risks particular to their lawsuit, that conversation should occur with the active participation of the attorney.
- Some people need a chance to tell their story and feel that they have been heard. The mediator should always ensure that they know you are listening.
- A wrongful death litigant who has not processed their grief will not be in any position to make financial choices about the loss of their loved one.
- Always read the parties’ submissions far enough in advance to ask questions before mediation if necessary. When it becomes clear that the mediator did not read your submissions, faith in the process is eroded.
- If the mediator has or exhibits bias for one party over the other, they are not serving either party.
- When a mediator has not worked with an attorney before, a phone conference in advance of the mediation is a welcome gesture. Different attorneys want different help from their mediators.
- When the parties are making progress, have patience.
- Brackets are useful tools but are often employed far too early in the mediation process to be effective.
- If a case does not settle but is not hopeless, provide follow up at regular intervals for free.
- When a case is settled, get the essential terms in writing and make sure the litigants sign the memorandum of settlement.
- Where there is not a good reason to conduct a mediation in-person, Zoom is effective. Studies have shown that Zoom mediations settle at a rate equal to traditional mediation in conference rooms. [1] [2] [3]
Jeffrey Carey’s mediation rates for 2024-2025 are $300/hr. for in-person mediation and $250/hr. for Zoom mediations.
To book a mediation, please contact us at (816) 246-9445.
[2] https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/eeocs-pivot-virtual-mediation-highly-successful-new-studies-find
[3] https://www.abi.org/feed-item/zoom-mediations-and-%E2%80%9Ctrust%E2%80%9D-a-study