Varieties of Mediation

1.  Triage mediation (court-connected process)

Triage mediation is believed to be relatively uncommon today. Formerly, it was widely seen in court systems and was developed to divert large numbers of cases away from the trial system. This sort of mediation is typically very brief and focused. The goal of triage mediation is to get the dispute out of the court system as quickly as possible by seeking a quick settlement. The focus of triage mediation is typically narrow – it is focused in the short term on this dispute because that is all that’s needed to get the case out of court. The main advantage of triage mediation is that it’s cheap, it’s quick, and it clears court dockets. However, triage mediation presents a number of significant problems (Beck & Sales 2000). Because its principal goal is to save money and avoid court, mediators are often poorly trained and poorly and carry overly heavy caseload.

2. Bargaining-Based Mediation

 Bargaining-based mediation is an extremely common form of mediation. Sometimes it called concession hunting. It is the predominant style used in court-connected civil dispute mediation, as well as the mediation of commercial, construction, and personal injury cases. The primary goal of bargaining-based mediation is to attain a fair agreement through compromise. Lawyer mediators are more likely to use this form of mediation than any other. The focus is usually narrow and the process is typically evaluative.

Bargaining-based mediation is particularly good for cases in which there are highly divergent perceptions of fact or law – because the divergent perceptions may be the most important impediment to settlement. It’s also good for cases involving highly complex legal issues, since lawyers tend to be closely involved in the mediation process.

3. Therapeutic mediation.

Therapeutic denotes a process that leads from emotional distress to emotional relief. The goal of a therapeutic process is restoration of a sense of well-being.

Mediation refers to a process by which a third party assists two antagonistic parties to discuss and resolve issues in dispute. A resolution is an agreement upon a plan of action which is acceptable to both parties because it is fully responsive to the concerns of both parties.

The term therapeutic mediation thus implies a twofold goal: emotional healing plus agreement on a plan of action.

4. Pure Mediation

 Pure mediation is a facilitative process whose goal is to promote collaborative, integrative, principled bargaining. (It is very important to note that the goal of pure mediation is not to reach agreement but, rather, to promote the sorts of negotiation behaviors that will lead to reaching agreement.)