North Florida Mediation

02/04/2024

All mediations are conducted using Zoom! Check our website for the online calendar to schedule your mediation.

08/30/2021

We had a great time in St. Louis sponsoring the #10 Nascar Camping World Truck Series Truck with Driver Jennifer Jo Cobb!

05/03/2021

Only a few seats left for June family mediation training. Call now or visit our website.

Florida Mediation Training - Florida Supreme Court Certified Circuit Civil, Family and County Mediation Training, Arbitration Training, Continuing Education for Mediators, Attorneys and Mental Health Professionals

12/21/2020

Big News from the Florida Supreme Court! On December 17, 2020, the Court released In re: Alternative Dispute Resolution Educational and Certification Requirements, Fla. Admin. Order No. AOSC20-24 Amendment1 (December 16, 2020). This administrative order removes the mandatory requirement for mentorship points and allows for mentor signatures to be either original or electronic. Additionally, in lieu of mentor signatures, email verification is permitted. These amendments pertain to persons who have completed a certified mediation training program on or after April 7, 2020, and is effective through December 31, 2021, as long as an application is submitted to the DRC within the same timeframe.

12/14/2020

Another great family mediation training class in the books! They look so happy - and yes this was taken on the last day!!

11/08/2020

Florida Mediation Training - Florida Supreme Court Certified Circuit Civil, Family and County Mediation Training, Arbitration Training, Continuing Education for Mediators, Attorneys and Mental Health Professionals

10/05/2020

Interesting statistics! I wonder if this will turn out to be true.

Here are some stats from a nationwide survey of attorneys that have been participating in mediations via zoom or some other video conferencing platform.

Q. Attorney effectiveness in advocating for your client
68% - no change versus in-person mediation
28% - worse
4% - better

If worse, common responses were harder to read non-verbal cues, too much focus on software/technology, can't posture and pretend to pack up and head for the door, no water cooler talk with opposing counsel

Q. How do you rate the Mediator's Effectiveness?
72% - the same
25% - worse
3% - better

If worse, common responses were trouble building rapport, participants distracted, mediator was nervous about technology, could not talk to opposing counsel face to face

Q. Will you continue to use video conferencing for Mediation post Covid-19?
65.6% - likely to continue
22.2% - unlikely
12.2% - undecided

Q. If likely to continue post Covid, what % of mediations will you do online?
52% estimated they would do 50-74% of mediations online
22% est. they would do 75% or more online
18% est. they would do 25-49% online
8% est. less than 25% online

Is Zoom the new normal? Do you think a significant percentage of mediations will continue to be held online? I would be interested in your comments.

09/29/2020

More news from last weeks Zoom Conference! Larry Watson from the Upchurch firm (Florida) reported that his firm is conducting 357 zoom mediations a month and has completed 1,788 since the pandemic. He reports no difference in the settlement percentage, most are of the hybrid nature where one or more participants is with their attorney or in the mediation center as opposed to all appearing from separate locations. The negatives being reported by attorneys include the loss of interpersonal relationships (no water cooler moments with opposing counsel), technical challenges, getting agreements signed in multiparty cases, and can't capture extra players on the sign-in sheet/confidentiality agreement.

John Miles of Miles Mediation & Arbitration (Atlanta, Savannah and Charlotte) reports settlement rates initially dropped but have returned to normal. The Atlanta office conducts 40 mediations per week and they have 16 mediators that conduct more than 10 mediations per month.

Don Philbin (TX) reports no change in settlement percentage.

Howard Vogel (TN) - no change in settlement percentage.

The positives reported from the panel include, now getting decision-makers at the mediation (always an issue in circuit), caucus works better as participants can get other things done and are not just sitting there waiting on the mediator, facial expressions and posture are actually better seen in zoom because the camera is directly in front, de-escalation techniques work better in zoom, zoom promotes pre-mediation meetings with the attorneys (on zoom) to practice the technology and talk with lawyers about the case, claims adjusters like working from home and a happy comfortable adjuster is always a good thing, some mediators are recording the settlement agreement (some states like CA and AZ consider a recording a writing).

Part Three - later

09/25/2020

Some takeaways from my Zoom Roundtable with Harry Moseley, Zoom Global CIO. 1. Zoomtopia.com is online this year Oct. 14-15 and free to register. 2. Check out onzoom.com for fun content, virtual backgrounds and great ideas. 3. Update to the latest version of Zoom 5.3.0 - and check out the new features like 49 tiles per screen, pin video (to see micro facial expressions), move and re-arrange tiles, new share screen options, enhanced video options, etc. 4. Changes and more options coming for chat feature and breakout rooms. 5. E2EE encryption to be released in a few weeks. 6. No timetable on a doorbell feature.

I will make another post with some very interesting statistics regarding polling of lawyers that use zoom for mediation!