My #goingitalone journey continues.

 
Finally, my observations are under my belt, it only took three months and I had learnt so much from observing some of the best in action. April 2017 arrives and I can finally be let lose to mediate alone. After three long months of ticking all the boxes to be able to practice, the enquiries start to come in and I get a booking, my first mediation, me, all alone, I’ve been chosen, this is what I have been working towards all these months! I have to compose myself before I respond to the e mail as I am so excited and slightly nervous! Should I admit that……. well I just did!
 
Instructions received to turn up in Liverpool to mediate an Inheritance Act claim between a co-habitee and an estate. Right up my street. I read the papers with interest. The lawyer side of my brain beavering away when reading the contentious legal issues. Looking at both sides’ positions and wondering what I would say if I were them. Switching to my mediator hat, I wondered what issues looked likely to arise, got to grips with what appeared to be important to the parties from the papers but knowing from experience that what remains unsaid in the papers can speak volumes.
 
I got in the car and drove two and half hours to the lovely city of Liverpool, arriving an hour early to prepare and get myself into the #mediation zone, suss out the venue and have a cuppa.
 
I have attended mediations in various venues across the country already, including in a prison, where the parties met in the children’s visitor room and sat on tiny chairs (after we were all searched by guards and sniffed by dogs), a Sikh temple, swanky city and regional lawyers’ offices and pokey windowless hotel conference rooms. Attending a mediation in an old school building of a high street practice where sound proofing does not exist and the set-up of the building was similar to that of a house, was a new one. Immediately my mediator head switched on, I started to think about keeping the parties apart and giving them privacy. Where are the toilets? How can I keep them fully refreshed and fed? I also learnt a harsh lesson in mediation that day which is that not every mediation provides catering for the mediator so always bring a sarnie in your bag just in case! By close of play that evening when signatures were finally on paper by 7pm, I got in the car elated that I had settled my first case but also STARVING!!
 
Settlement can come from nowhere, just as the parties seem to be losing hope and are considering throwing in the towel, it is crucial that the mediator keeps the pace going and explores all opportunities so that the parties walk away that day (or in the early hours of the following day) with a settlement they can live with or with the comfort that everyone, including the mediator tried their best. On that note however I am a big believer that settlement on the day is not how successful mediations should be measured…..achieving settlement on the day is a fantastic result however sometimes the parties need that extra time, something new may have come up at mediation or no matter how hard you try one party’s mind-set may not be in the right place that day, but I know from experience to keep on going afterwards whether it is on the telephone or on e mail in the following weeks because settlement may well come once everyone has had the benefit of time….. , which my second mediation in Manchester, some weeks later, confirmed to me. Achieving resolution with my involvement even some weeks after the "mediation day" is still a successful mediation.
 
Feedback from my first mediation was that I was the best mediator one of the parties had ever instructed…….what more could I ask for #happydays