At Your Mediation Meeting

If your mediation is in person,  we will use a minimum of two rooms.  Each participant will have a room to use as their base to hold private conversations with the mediator.   We will also have a space where everyone can come together to hold a joint meeting.

Your mediator will let you know how the day will run and reassure you about the process.  Usually each participant will be asked to give their desired outcome at the end of the mediation meeting.

After the first opening session, the participants will be in separate rooms so that they can talk privately with the mediator.  The mediator will facilitate a conversation with each participant to get them to reflect on their case, its strengths and weaknesses and the solution that they are looking for.  The mediator will shuttle between the rooms conveying offers to settle the dispute and helping each participant to think about what they mean to them.  

Hopefully - and we stress usually - you will get to a point where a proposed solution is agreed amongst the participants.  At that point the settlement is written up as an agreement where it becomes binding when signed and dated.  The settlement agreement is the only thing that will remain at the end of the mediation agreement.  In the majority of cases, the participants come back together for a final joint open session.

In the majority of mediation sessions, the participants come back together for one last open session where the end of the mediation is confirmed and participants have their first opportunity to talk to each other with an agreement about how to move forward in place.