As mediation has proliferated and become part of our legal culture, how mediations are conducted has diversified. There is no “standard” process of mediation, and there is little empirical evidence to inform us about what happens behind closed mediation doors. As a result, many of us tend to think that how we conduct mediation is the norm, particularly if it is how we were trained.

I co-authored one of the earliest books on mediation, premised on the assumption that the entire process would be conducted in joint session: separate meetings with the parties would be the exception, used only when animosity was too high for the parties to be in the same room together or when secret information could not otherwise be revealed. At that time, mediators were trained to begin with a joint session that would continue until it was no longer productive. I believed that joint sessions were essential. But times have changed.

In preparation for a presentation on joint sessions at the ABA Dispute Resolution Section’s 2015 Annual Conference, my co-panelists and I decided to survey experienced mediators to ask whether, when, and why they use joint sessions. We were interested in individual practice differences as well as regional variations. We also wanted to learn how use of joint sessions might have changed over time, the purposes for which they are used, and what the mediators thought about their use.

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