Can you describe a situation where you had to mediate remotely and how you overcame the challenges?

During and following Covid, many mediations were and are now conducted without personal appearances. Assuming that the mediator and all parties are able to access the mediation with appropriate equipment and an electronic conference app, the mediator will be able to access the parties and conduct the mediation remotely. The challenge to the mediator will be conduct the mediation smoothly without interruption and in an organized manner. For these types of mediations the mediator should require written opening statements and a mediation brief. The mediator can then communicate with counsel for each party prior to the mediation and have a confidential discussion to narrow the issues and get some idea as to the parties' position on a possible resolution. These steps will give the mediator a better understanding of the issues and goals of the parties and perhaps make the remote proceedings less complicated and allow the mediator to have more quality time to caucus with the parties and hopefully assist the parties in attaining a resolution.

I handle about 80% or more of my mediations remotely these days (and have since March of 2020) and at this point I don't even see it as challenging but just as mediating in person can, mediating remotely has it's own challenges that can arise, although also has many benefits to the mediator and the client. The main challenge I find is that sometimes people just aren't set up correctly technology wise so we'll have to play around with the video or the sound and I sometimes play tech support for the first 5-10 minutes. Additionally, I do find that clients aren't always making sure that they're in a place where they can focus solely on the mediation at hand like they would if we met in person. I've had clients driving or walking around while we do the mediation because they're on their phone and this can be incredibly distracting to the other parties as well as means that person is not giving the mediation their full attention. To overcome both of these challenges we've put together resources for the clients to review before we meet that help them make sure that their audio/video will work and reminds them to be in a place where they can focus on the meeting and that they are alone when doing so.

I have been using Zoom and other virtual tools to mediate since 2018 and I host about 60% of my mediation sessions virtually. I believe that a virtual setting in the context of divorce mediation can have a positive effect. An in-person meeting places the couple in the same physical space which allows for each to be impacted more readily by the other's body movements, facial expressions and demeanor. In a virtual setting, I can help couples no matter where they live from the comfort of their personal space and I find that the impact of the movements and attitude are diminished. Mediating divorce in a virtual world, especially high-conflict cases, is a benefit.

At a former company, during a complex remote mediation, we had to find out why team members were having communication issues. Our team analyzed communication patterns and sentiment trends from their past digital interactions. This helped us figure out what to do to fix things and helped everyone correspond better, so they could solve problems for good.