Never judge a client by their body language

Never assume the outcome of a mediation solely by the body language of participants. I learned this when I co-mediated a case involving two mothers whose boys were playing when one injured the other. Each parent brought in several people for support and the two groups sat in separate clusters, arms folded, glaring at each other in silence. "This is never going to happen," I thought to myself.

We asked each parent to bring a family member into the mediation room, where things got off to a rough start. The mother of the injured child spoke first and in telling her story, her voice grew louder. The other parent interrupted, refuting the facts. They continued talking at the same time, neither listening to the other as each raised her voice to talk over the other.

My co-mediator, a retired military member with the booming voice of a Marine Corps drill sergeant, let the shouting continue for what seemed like several minutes, but probably was only a few seconds, spoke up. "TIME OUT!", he commanded. The clients immediately disengaged from each other and looked at us. The mediator lowered his voice and began asking specific questions to each parent. I began to do the same. It was almost as if we had rehearsed our response.

The tactic drained the anger and tension out of the room. We learned that while these parents lived in the same neighborhood, they did not know each other and had not spoken to each other in the months since the accidental injury. Each had had a lot of time to think about the incident, and to let their anger build. The mother of the injured boy was suing for out-of-pocket medical expenses not covered by her insurance. Once we got past the emotion, the story began to unfold as each parent talked about what had happened and their response to the incident. The mother of the boy who injured the other apologized. The other parent accepted the apology and acknowledged that it was an accident and not intentional. After that, we got down to the business of how the medical costs would be repaid.

After the mediation, I was emotionally drained, but felt good about the outcome. We can't always get clients to agree, but it helps when we don't make assumptions before the mediation begins.

Chuck Hardwick