Should You Become a Mediator?

Mediation is a popular career choice among lawyers and judges seeking greater flexibility or skill enhancement. Unlike traditional litigation, mediation provides a collaborative and cost-effective dispute resolution option. Mediation also allows parties to maintain control over the outcome of their dispute and often leads to more satisfactory resolutions for all involved. Overall, experienced lawyers and judges often make the most effective neutrals due to their legal expertise, conflict resolution skills, neutrality, and desire to help parties find mutually acceptable solutions to their disputes.

Are you curious about whether mediation is right for you? We asked Hon. M. Gino Brogdon, Sr. for his advice on how to successfully move to mediation:

First, be honest about your talents. You must be trustworthy, likable, and have a positive reputation as a good person. Enemies and integrity issues will kill a mediator—people won’t want to work with you if they can’t trust you.

Second, you can’t come into the mediation acting like a judge. You must release the power to the parties.  To quote the movie, Magnum Force, “You must recognize your limitations.”  You are not smooth enough or intelligent enough to get smart people to miss something important.

Finally, if you aspire to be a mediator, as best and as early as you can, embrace what you bring to the equation that is really unique.  Your particular personality traits will shine through in the mediation and will result in future bookings. 

Are you ready to get started as a neutral in Georgia? Those interested in registering in Georgia must meet certain qualifications. While the State of Georgia offers no real “certification” for neutrals, through proper training and application approval, neutrals can register with the Georgia Office of Dispute Resolution. This means that neutrals are added to a registry of those eligible to act as a neutral in court-connected cases.

Henning’s training program complies with the Georgia Office of Dispute Resolution’s (GODR) guidelines that are required in order to register as a Neutral in the state of Georgia. We provide training in several areas of mediation, arbitration, and dispute resolution. Our public courses are scheduled regularly and designed for individual lawyers, claims representatives, human resource professionals, managers, and others. We can also provide custom-designed training courses for law firms, insurance companies, corporations, and governmental agencies that have multiple people in need of training. Click to see our training schedule and register today!