Remote mediation

The same process, a different room

Remote mediation is not an abridged version of the process. It is the full sequence of opening, information sharing, private caucus, negotiation, and written agreement, conducted over secure video with a separate breakout room for each party.

The mediator moves between those rooms exactly as they would move between conference rooms in an office. The confidentiality that governs the day attaches to the communications rather than to the building, so the protections in the agreement to mediate and in statute apply unchanged. What differs is logistics, cost, and reach.

What the evidence shows

Skepticism about remote mediation was widespread when it became necessary, and it has been tested since.

A study of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission mediators, conducted by researchers at Salisbury University and published by the agency in February 2022, compared online mediation against in-person mediation across the agency’s caseload. The settlement rate for online mediation was roughly seventy-one percent, against roughly seventy-two percent for in-person mediation. The difference is about one percentage point.

The mediator perceptions in the same study are more interesting than the headline figure. A majority reported reading body language effectively over video. Most saw no difference in participant focus, and a quarter observed greater focus online. Roughly half found caucusing in breakout rooms more efficient than walking between rooms, and a majority reported that negotiating momentum was better preserved between sessions. The researchers concluded that online mediation is a distinct form of the process rather than a degraded copy of it.

Where the format helps

The advantages are practical, and several of them are not obvious.

Scheduling is the plainest. A matter involving parties, counsel, and an insurer in three time zones can be convened in a fortnight rather than a quarter, and a session that needs a second half-day can get one without anyone flying twice. Cost follows from the same fact, since travel and venue expense disappear from a process whose economy is already the point.

Physical separation is the underrated advantage. Parties in genuine conflict frequently arrive tense at the prospect of being in a building together, and that tension is real work the mediator would otherwise have to manage before the substance begins. Remote sessions start further along. Distributed and hybrid organizations gain the most, since a workplace dispute among colleagues who have never shared an office is poorly served by a process that assumes they have.

Where in person is worth the trouble

Candor about the limits is more useful than advocacy for the format.

An in-person session is generally preferable where an acknowledgment between the parties is the substance of the resolution rather than an accompaniment to it, since something in that exchange is carried by presence. It is also preferable where a participant is not comfortable with the technology, where the matter is likely to run long enough that a screen becomes a genuine obstacle, or where the parties themselves believe the day matters enough to be in a room. That belief is worth respecting on its own terms.

Cadenza Resolutions conducts mediation in person across the San Francisco Bay Area and by secure video for parties anywhere, in English and in Cantonese. For the stage-by-stage sequence, see the mediation process. For workplace and employment matters specifically, see workplace mediation.