Virtual Online Mediations

Typically, a conventional ‘face to face’ mediation commences with the parties arrival at the agreed venue, usually a solicitors office, and following a welcome in a reception-cum-waiting room area, they are escorted to a private room and joined there for an initial private discussion with the mediator. Thereafter it is very often the case that each party’s team or group gather together with the other’s at the mediator’s invitation in a joint meeting chaired by him or her after which there may be more joint meetings involving all the mediation participants, or just some (e.g. the mediator along with the parties’ legal representatives). Invariably though there will be other one-to-one meetings conducted by the mediator with the parties individually within the privacy of their own rooms allocated to them at the beginning of the mediation day.

Thanks to the development of some sophisticated online technology created by ZOOM, since early 2020 it has been possible to replicate the face to face model by creating not only a virtual waiting room facility but also a series of virtual and totally secure private breakout rooms for the parties and the mediator ‘to occupy’.

Mediation Resolution maintains and manages a ZOOM PRO ACCOUNT for the use of its clients, free of charge, in virtual online mediations which because of the Covid 19 pandemic are currently the norm. It is widely believed that ‘post Covid’, many more mediations will be conducted online than before the early Spring of 2020.

Our mediators have been trained in the use of ZOOM for civil/commercial as well as workplace mediations. A number of helpful tools for use before and during such mediations have been worked-up by Mediation Resolution and put to good use: among them, a suggested pre-mediation day preparation timetable for the parties to agree, an online checklist for them to complete in advance of the mediation day and a virtual rooming template for the parties and the mediator to use during it.

Your attention is drawn to each of Mediation Resolution’s:

• Model Procedure for Virtual Online Mediations (in particular, see paras. 8 & 10)
• Pro forma Mediation Agreement for Online and Telephonic Mediations (2020 Edition)
• Terms and Conditions for Civil/Commercial Mediations (both in person ‘face to face’ as well as online)
• Terms and Conditions for Workplace Mediations (both in person ‘face to face’ as well as online)
• Specimen suggested pre-mediation preparation timetable
• Pre-mediation checklist for virtual online mediations
• Virtual ‘rooming’ arrangements/locations template

Each of these will be found in the Documentation and Resources section of this website.