Mediation - A Doubly Rewarding Career

I have found the private practice of divorce mediation and business mediation to be a very rewarding career. When I began working as a mediator in 1995, few people were familiar with the concept of mediation and few people hired me. Over the years, divorce and business mediation became better known as less hostile and less expensive alternatives to litigation. My business quietly and steadily developed along with the public awareness of the value spouses and other disputing parties could derive from mediation. Eventually, I no longer needed to advertise in order to stay busy full time. Growth had happened so slowly, however, that I did not realize for several years that all of my business was being derived solely from referrals.

The event that brought my attention to the fact that my mediation business had become a referral based business occurred in 2009. In June of that year, after having been in business as an attorney for twenty-one years, and as a business mediator and divorce mediator for fourteen years, I was asked by two mental health professionals to train them in the art of divorce mediation. These professionals, who had been referring cases to me for several years, complained that they had taken divorce mediation training classes and found them inadequate. They said that they did not feel at all prepared to take on divorce mediation cases after their respective trainings because the classes were primarily geared toward attorneys and there was a lot of “fluffy stuff” included in their courses that had more to do with theoretical and historical perspectives of mediation as a concept and a process rather than what they would need to do when clients came into their offices. They wanted to know how to do the real work of divorce mediators.

My initial reaction was to decline their request based upon my already overwhelming schedule. Additionally, truth be told, I was not the least bit interested in creating a couple of mediators who would not only compete with me for business, but never refer any more cases to me! But, after thinking through their request, and realizing for the first time that these professionals would not be competing with me for business because my business had become referral-based, I began to ponder what might be involved in a mediation training program that would successfully train students to provide the services I had been rewardingly providing for so long.

Adding to my thoughts about possibly training others to do divorce mediation and business mediation work was a comment from a colleague, who upon seeing me in court for the first time in awhile exclaimed "I heard that you retired!" Wow, that caught me off guard...I was not even fifty. But, maybe I had been around for awhile...or looked closer to retirement than I thought. Perhaps it would be alright to slow down a little. Add a little something new and fun to my routine.

So, after some reflection and a good long look in the mirror (and perhaps a bottle of anti-aging serum) I decided to begin training others to do what I had been so rewarded by and grateful for doing over the course of my career. It had been driving me crazy for years that there were more and more incompetent mediators entering the field. Perhaps I could create some world class mediators and do my part to keep the profession polished.

Within a year of the request made by the two mental health professionals that I train them as mediators, and some serious consideration of course content, as well as coming to grips with the fact that I would have to turn over all of my successful business processes and practices to my students in order to bring an honest nuts and bolts approach to their training, my first course was born.

Since then, with the help of an amazing staff at Conflict Resolution Training, we have developed more courses for our students. We now have courses in Advanced Mediation Training, Negotiation Techniques, Marketing for Mediators, a Mediators' Writing Workshop with reference guide: The Mediator's Guide to Writing Memoranda and more in the works. The courses are offered in a number of states. And incredibly, I have begun a second, amazingly rewarding career!

It is simply wonderful to see students graduate from our basic four day Divorce Mediation Certification Seminar, begin mediating actual cases, moving forward with their knowledge through advanced training courses and seriously becoming proficient and successful as divorce mediators. Some of my students have even organized themselves into the American Association of Mediators, a professional group of like-minded mediators with a comittment to promoting mediation as the very best method fof conflict resolution and to supporting one another as mediator colleagues.

My opportunity to teach others how to successfully do what I have enjoyed so much over the years has been a tremendous bonus that has flowed from my career as a mediator - one that I never anticipated - one that has made my career as a mediator doubly rewarding.