For the past several years, Roselle Wissler (Arizona State) and I have been reporting findings about the early stages of mediation from online survey data collected (pre-pandemic) from over 1000 private and court-based mediators in 8 states across the country.
Our latest article from this data set, Mediators’ Views of What Can Be Achieved Better in Initial Joint Sessions and in Initial Separate Caucuses recently published in the Washington University Journal of Law & Policy, finds that mediators see these initial joint sessions and initial caucuses as having many of the benefits conventionally ascribed to them, despite recent changes in mediation practice before and during the first formal session. Mediators think that initial joint sessions allow the parties to speak directly to and be heard by each other and develop a better understanding of the mediation process and the dispute. They note multiple additional benefits associated with both parties hearing the same information at the same time in initial joint sessions, which previously have received little comment in the literature. Not surprisingly, mediators think that initial separate caucuses permit the mediation to proceed when the parties are unable to mediate together civilly or meaningfully. Interestingly, mediators ascribed several other benefits to both initial joint sessions and initial separate caucuses, though generally for different reasons.
Prior articles from this study reporting mediators’ current practices before and during the initial mediation session and the factors related to the use of initial joint sessions versus initial caucuses, can be found at:
Wissler & Hinshaw, Joint Session or Caucus? Factors Related to How the Initial Mediation Session Begins, 37 Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution 391 (2022).
Wissler & Hinshaw, What Happens Before the First Mediation Session? An Empirical Study of Pre-Session Communications, 23 Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution 143 (2022).
Wissler & Hinshaw, The Initial Mediation Session: An Empirical Examination, 27 Harvard Negotiation Law Review 1 (2021).
