Mediation is a formal negotiation session in which the parties to a case meet with an independent intermediary (the mediator) who tries to broker a resolution of the case. Usually this takes place at the mediator’s office and both parties sit with their teams in separate rooms while the mediator goes back and forth, meeting with each side independently and communicating each sides evolving positions to one another.
Mediation is much more about negotiation than it is about a formal presentation of the case. While other important junctures of a case can involve critical testimony or rulings – all of which may be binding on the case – mediation is generally limited to being a discussion of how to get the case resolved. Parties should come to a mediation mentally prepared to resolve a case, but knowing that if a case does not get resolved, the case simply continues to proceed forward as though the mediation had not occurred. Whatever negotiation occurred at the mediation generally has little impact on the evidentiary substance or procedural posture of the case.