Mastering Mediation: 50 Essential Tools for the Advanced Practitioner

What can a mediator do when negotiations stall? How can a mediator help participants reach the finish line? How should a mediator best respond when the parties confess that they are too far apart to settle? Is there anything a mediator can do to help the high-conflict litigant achieve resolution of his emotional case?

Mastering Mediation answers these and other pertinent questions. It delivers 50 practical, advanced tools you can use today to improve your mediation skills and to obtain more satisfying results for the participants. Within these pages you will learn innovative ways to guide negotiations, move through impasse, and stay optimistic in the midst of chaos and crisis-in short, how to become a more effective mediator or settlement conference judge. Even the most experienced mediators or judges will learn to question old assumptions, improve shop-worn techniques, and try cutting-edge approaches.

Written by a Superior Court judge and a private mediator, Mastering Mediation offers tried-and-true, practical advice for use in the real world. These techniques were gained from the authors' actual experiences and observations from conducting thousands of settlement conferences and mediations. Mastering Mediation will benefit anyone who conducts settlement negotiations in court, in private mediation, in the workplace, or any other venue where conflict exists.

About the Authors

Lynn Duryee is a Superior Court judge and Matt White is a litigator and a mediator. Both practice in San Rafael, California.