The more intense the conflict, the more need for pre-mediation caucusing because the novice in the room is the driver of how fast or far along.  Other than abuse or high intense conflict cases are the only indicators that pre-caucusing mediation is needed – otherwise there’s a need for investigation.  He’s not a proponent of joint sessions openings going away, but fears that it is.  He believes caucus first will return a joint opening session to its rightful role.  Note – Mike has done literally thousands of mediations and is considered the top mediator in St.Louis.

• Not everyone knows what they’re giving up in losing the joint session.
• What are you doing in joint session – if you’re making a plea to save it, what are you trying to save?
• This is very much like restorative justice and victim-offender mediation or domestic violence issues b/c you’re essentially talking about lots of pre-mediation education.
• The things you’re complaining about are what happens when you let lawyers co-opt the process.  So often it’s about the lawyers and not their clients.
• What you’re talking about is training the lawyers – I wish you didn’t have to do that for them.
• You can’t ignore caucus-only mediations b/c many of the motivations for caucus-only are the same as your motivations for pre-mediation caucusing.
• This article is about 2 things – efficiencies and mediation preparation.  Talk more about how the caucus-first model is more efficient than the traditional model and how mediation preparation is incredibly undervalued.  Essentially you’re proposing that mediators take this time to do the preparation for the lawyers and their parties so the mediation time is well used.
• What other practical solutions are there in addition to a pre-mediation caucus.  How can you educate the lawyers’ clients better?