Virtual mediations have become more commonplace in the practice of law since March 2020.  That shouldn’t be a big deal, right?  Isn’t it just like preparing for an in-person mediation?  Well, the answer may surprise you.  Hon. Thomas A. Stander (Ret.) provides important tips to prepare your cases for virtual mediations through a videoconference platform such as Zoom in his Advocate’s View article in the Daily Record. Find more on how to prepare here.

Snippet from article:

It’s March 2020, and at first, I thought — we all thought — mediations will have to be put on hold until we can do them “in person.” However, it quickly became apparent that doing anything in person would involve risk and adhering to stringent protocols. The courts were on hold, and if the practice of law were to continue, the litigation world could not remain on hold too. We couldn’t wait around for everything to get back to “normal” in the courts. Still, there was a feeling that virtual mediations would be too difficult to set up, cumbersome, and ultimately not successful. The early consensus was that virtual mediations are not the way we have always done things, so they probably won’t work. But challenging that “muscle memory” — doing what we’ve always done — is how you create opportunity… Read the full article here.