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Where a face-to-face mediation is not appropriate (perhaps because the cost of getting all the parties and their advisors together in the same place is disproportionate, or perhaps where disability prevents a party attending in person, and, of course particularly during the current Coronavirus pandemic) or just where the parties prefer it because of the greater convenience and cost savings, online video conferencing technology can bring the mediation right into your office or home. Online technology allows clients, solicitors and counsel to join an online mediation from different locations, and provides virtual rooms where each side can confer in confidence. Alternatively, some lawyers and clients choose to gather physically in a solicitors' office or counsel's chambers even for online mediation, and that can work too.
We constantly monitor the available video conferencing software in order to ensure that we're using cutting edge technology to deliver the best possible online mediation experience. Our preference at this moment in time is to use the Zoom Pro platform where possible, carefully choosing settings to ensure it is secure, confidential, and works to our requirements. This is loaded with features designed specifically to replicate face to face mediation: private "rooms" for the parties so that solicitors, counsel and client can all be in different places but come together virtually in a private space where they can talk in private, both with and without the mediator, just like in a face-to-face mediation. There's also joint session rooms, the ability to share documents, a whiteboard for those "flip chart moments".....you name it, the folk at Zoom thought of it, and then we tweaked the settings so that it exactly met our requirements. If you haven't got Zoom on your computer, you can download it here. Don't worry about paying for Zoom Pro, we've done that so that you don't have to, so you can just download the free version and join the mediation with that. And if you'd like to take a look at how our version of the Zoom Pro platform works, we're always happy to give you a free "virtual" demo in the comfort of your own office or home, with no obligation. Just drop an email to info@mediation1st.co.uk and we'll get back to you.
And there are many advantages: not just the saving of time and money (the fees are cheaper and there's also a saving in travel time and costs for the parties), but we often find that in the comfort of their own homes, or the familarity of their own solicitors' offices, people are more relaxed, and that makes for better mediation. Plus, the lawyers tell us that if they're in their own office or at home they can get some chargeable work done in the "down time" whilst the mediator is with the other party, which sounds like a win / win to us!
In any event, during the Coronavirus pandemic, and until things are back to normal, the alternative to mediating online isn't face-to-face mediation as we once knew it, but socially distanced, mask wearing mediation (the Government Guidelines on the wearing of masks in premises providing legal services are here). Every one of our mediators would prefer to mediate online than to mediate socially distancing and mask wearing. As mediators, we depend on the human contact, on being able to see people's faces in order to read facial cues, on building a relationship of trust with people, and quite simply it's next to impossible to do any of that whilst mediating mask wearing socially distancing people. We've tried. The real answer to anyone who says "I pefer face-to-face mediation" during the panedemic would be: So do we! Which is exactly why we'd rather mediate online for now because mediating online gives us more face-to-face interaction even over a computer screen than mediating in masks and socially distancing ever can. And that is probably why online mediation has a much better success rate than socially distanced mediation.
Online mediation is cheaper, more convenient and during the pandemic has a better success rate than the socially distanced alternative. What's not to like? Do get in touch with any questions, perhaps have a walk trhough the online platform with one of our mediators, and then give mediating online a try. You may never want to travel to another mediation.
