THIS WEEK IN MEDIATION – MEDIATE.COM’S 31st YEAR! –
April 22, 2026 – #1,137
Mediate’s Statewide Banners Expand the Geography of Your Practice
When a visitor comes to Mediate.com, we are able to determine what state the visitor resides in and we then systematically display your banner both at the top of Mediate.com and in the body of our articles for every visitor from your state. See Sample Statewide Banners!
The Global Mediator: Why Geography is No Longer a Barrier to Practice By Stuart Hanson
We are now operating in a genuinely global mediation environment. Technology has removed many of the practical barriers that once limited cross-border work. Online mediation is now well established, widely accepted, and increasingly preferred in many contexts. As a result, the question is no longer whether a mediator can work across borders, but whether they are appropriately trained and accredited to do so.
The 7 Fastest Ways to Grow Your Practice in 2026 with Susan Guthrie
In this solo episode, Susan Guthrie walks through the seven fastest ways to grow your practice in 2026 and beyond. These are not trends. These are patterns, the things she sees consistently with professionals whose practices are growing, whose calendars are full, and who are being sought out rather than chasing work.
Combatting Overconfidence Bias in Mediation By N. Edward (Ed) Timken
Overconfidence bias is one of the most common—and dangerous—psychological hurdles you will face in mediation. Overconfidence bias is a cognitive illusion where a person’s subjective confidence in their own judgments, knowledge, or likelihood of success is significantly higher than the objective reality.
MediatorDojo! By Josh Remis, Colin Rule, Clare Fowler and Jim Melamed
MediatorDojo is here! Mediate.com has long provided mediators with trusted educational opportunities, practical tools and a place to keep learning. Mediator Dojo is our most recent super-cool step in this tradition: a way for mediators to gain realistic mediation practice experience with useful feedback and on your own schedule! Check Out MediatorDojo!
The Evolution of Mediation: 30 Years of Mediate.com By John Helie and Jim Melamed
In this video and set of articles, founders Jim Melamed and John Helie reflect on the thirty-year evolution of Mediate.com and its role in shaping the mediation profession. The discussion highlights their early work with ConflictNet in the 1980s, documenting the transition from text-based communications to the graphical internet. The pioneers emphasize how online dispute resolution (ODR) has shifted from a “bleeding edge” experiment to a mainstream necessity, particularly following the global impact of the pandemic. They also explore the integration of artificial intelligence, arguing that while technology offers efficiency, the human touch remains the essential “secret sauce” for resolving complex emotional disputes.
Agreement to Mediate Confidentiality Provision for AI Use By Jim Melamed
Rather than rely on attorney-client or any other professional evidentiary privilege, here is a “contractual confidentiality” provision that can be added to your Agreement to Mediate to preserve and extend your mediation contractual confidentiality to cover the use of AI.
Reviewing the Model Standards of Conduct for Mediators: Your Voice Matters! By Cassie Lively, Vice-President, American Arbitration Association
The ABA Dispute Resolution Section, the American Arbitration Association, and the Association for Conflict Resolution are exploring potential updates to the Model Standards of Conduct for Mediators (“Model Standards”) (2005). We invite your input to help identify areas that may need clarification, modernization, or further guidance in line with today’s mediation practices. Your responses will remain confidential and will directly inform the review process. Take the survey HERE. Read the current model standards HERE.
Great Reads Book Club (free) – Everyday-Mediator: 7 Practices for Navigating Conflict with Daniel Griffith on April 22
What are 7 skills that everyone has and needs to use in mediation? Our next “Great Reads” book club event will be with Daniel Griffith and his book Everyday-Mediator: 7 Practices for Navigating Conflict. Daniel Griffith, a lawyer, trained mediator, and educator with 30 years of experience, has worked with over 15,000 people across hundreds of groups and organizations. He’s discovered that we can all become effective mediators by using seven simple practices that tap into skills we all naturally possess. April 22, 2026, 9am–10am PST. Register for free: https://mediate.com/bookclub
Featured Mediation Magazine Article: Avoiding Misleading Mediator Communications By Norman Feit
The American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility recently reinforced longstanding principles of mediator neutrality and transparency with an ethics opinion focused on two themes: (i) a lawyer-mediator should never tell a party – particularly an unrepresented litigant – that the neutral represents that party, and (ii) that neutral should never make (or even convey) a statement during the course of the mediation knowing it to be false, incomplete, or at least exaggerated.
The Privacy Patchwork in 2026 By Robert Bergman
The unglamorous truth about U.S. data privacy in 2026 is that it is not one law. It is a mosaic. And the mosaic keeps adding tiles, sometimes faster than compliance teams can read the press releases.
This general Guidance covers all of the ODR Standards of practice for third parties involved in dispute or conflict engagement. The deployment of artificial intelligence to dispute management, whether face-to-face or online, offers valuable benefits to increase effectiveness and access to justice while also raising risks for disputants, third parties and dispute resolution entities. Accordingly, NCTDR and ICODR have developed guidance for what will inevitably be the use of AI in all forms of dispute engagement.
20% off at MediateUniversity.com for Mediate.com Members
Would you like to get more mediation cases, access all Mediate.com resources, including MediatorDojo, and 20% off at MediateUniversity.com? If so, join us at: www.mediate.com/Membership! See: Mediate.com Testimonials
May 11 and 13 Workplace Mediation Training with Dr. Clare Fowler (On Zoom)
If you are a mediator looking to expand into workplace mediation, an HR professional, or an Ombuds navigating conflict in your organization—join us for Growing Through Conflict: Workplace Dispute Resolution, a practical, skills-focused training led by Dr. Clare Fowler. Drawing on experience across industries, including tech, healthcare, hospitality, academia, and non-profits, this interactive two-day program will equip you with proven leadership and feedback techniques for handling real-world employee disputes. This will cover advanced processes such as change management, climate assessment, and departmental coaching. Whether you’re building your mediation practice or strengthening your ability to manage conflict internally, this training offers actionable tools you can use immediately. Register at lanecdr.com
Incorporating Technology & AI Into Your Divorce Mediation Practice
Transform your divorce mediation practice with tech tools and AI insights from nearly two dozen esteemed presenters. You will have access to 11 hours of recordings and all course materials for 1 year! Full information is here.
THIS WEEK’S MEDIATION NEWS:
We hope you’ll be able to join us for the 2026 ODR Forum, happening June 11, 2026 at the Rubenstein Treehouse conference center at Harvard University! This year’s ODR Forum will be paired with another gathering, the AI and Resolutions conference, happening the next day, June 12, 2026 at Suffolk Law School (just down the Red Line from Harvard). This Forum, our 26th, is particularly special because it will include a celebration of the Father of ODR, Professor Ethan Katsh. Please check out the conference website for all the details. We’ll have several days of social events and fun activities surrounding the Forum, including a hackathon, a Red Sox baseball game at Fenway Park and tours of MIT and the Massachusetts State House in downtown Boston. If you have any questions, contact Colin at [email protected].
TRAINING CALENDAR:
See COMPLETE TRAINING CALENDAR
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