Where do all the mediations go?
Any jobbing mediator will know what I mean.
It's like socks - where the hell do they go to between the washing machine and the sock draw?
After a flap last week where I interrupted a mediation to return a red hot call from a lawyer looking for an urgent date, and followed that with a confirmation blackberry email on the run providing a spread of dates, I get this today;
[click to enlarge]
What, but @!*?
I mean - I'd be delighted to be of assistance at any time in the future.
6 comments:
I feel your pain. Really, I do. I recently had the same thing happen. The parties contacted me on Monday. They agreed to a Friday mediation to meet a court imposed deadline. On Thursday night, after business hours, I received a phone call stating that the case was off because the plaintiff was "out of the country."
That, my friend, looked like a fire-drill. You know, some lawyer practicing what to do in case they actually needed you.
I hate when that happens. I tend to have mixed feelings about dealing with it. Either, I end up acting like a doormat- "Sure, I'll just be waiting here...for you...whenever." Or, the complete opposite- "Well, I'm busy but I can squeeze you in, uh, October 2010. Will that work?"
There's no good solution, I suppose, except to set the expectation that 'chain-pullers' are not welcome. Pull my chain once, shame on you; pull it twice, no more for you. Yeah, it's tough love, but do does anyone really want a practice filled with this sort?
Just my 2 cents...Dina
I feel your pain! My spouse often looks at the calendar and questions me over mediations on the calendar that do not come to pass.
And all along I thought it must have been something that I said . . .
Thank you for this posting, Geoff. Sad to say, it's refreshing to know that I'm in such good company!
Cheers,
Rina
Thanks Guys, this makes me feel a lot better. I mean, I am seriously amazed at how much time goes into managing a mediator's schedule (I do mine myself) and it can be an art form to keep all jobs in the maybe category, saying no to nothing but knowing if they all go ahead you will need to be in two places at one time, or none as they both disappear into the ether.
From my perspective, often trying to set up a mediation leads to settlement.
The other thing that happens is a "first choice" mediator becomes available. Sometimes it is one thing, sometimes another.
But then, these days I'm a consumer of mediation services.
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