Notice for Mediation.

Below are documents relating to mediation meeting we had in November.

Prior to this, I had looked up some mediators with good reputations in this area and provided my attorney Mr. Rice with them. Mr. Rice was surprised and said he had already decided on a mediator that he works with a lot. I said well, if that is what he recommends we will go with that. Big mistake. The spirit of mediation is to settle things outside of the court room and away from the legal profession to reach a result that works well for both parties. But in contrary to this as I found out (too late), most mediators out there are actually attorneys who took a couple hours of classes in mediation. It is just a big scheme where the lawyers monopolize the procedure by making sure to always use each other as mediators on their cases. By switching roles between litigator and mediator and back again they can make twice the money off the same client.

The mediator chosen was Mitchell Gordon. And what a joke he was as a mediator. He faced us and went into his little routine that explains the procedure of what is to come and how we are to feel comfortable etc, etc. etc. Then without hesitation, he started asking what sort of car was owned by me and what car was Stacy's. While puzzled I answered, and then he said "so is there a dispute on ownership?" I was horrified that he didn't even know what the topic of our mediation was and he was approaching it as a divorce settlement. I had submitted a "mediation summary" to his office as requested but apparently he had not bothered to look at it. I quickly corrected him saying that no property is disputed, we need a visitation schedule for the kids, child support and where the kids will go to school decided. Mr. Gordon realized his mistake and my horror and said that he tries not to know anything about the case in order to avoid "preconceptions" that could interfere with the process.

We spent perhaps 2 hours in mediation before it was prematurely terminated because Mr. Fox, Stacy's attorney had a different appointment he had to get to. I asked the mediator if Stacy was willing to continue, I will be willing to continue without Mr. Rice present. Mr. Gordon firmly refused saying that he would never discuss anything without the parties' attorneys present. "It causes a lot of problems later," he said. Right, less money to go around the lawyers.

Mediator and my attorney promised that they were going to write up what was agreed upon up to that point for our review and then set up a follow up meeting to finish things up. They never did write anything and despite my inquires, no appointment for a follow up meeting was ever set up. I suspected that even though the mediator seemed to be presenting a scenario saying Stacy agreed to it, but in truth, Stacy was having no part of it (Which I later confirmed through conversations in our joint counseling appointment.) Mediator and the attorneys probably knew that there was to be no resolution through mediation on this case.

As noted on the documents, payment for services was due at the conclusion of the meeting. Not surprisingly, Stacy did not come with any money. The mediator said he will just bill my attorney for all the costs of the mediation and that was that. So I ended up paying the $250 per hour for my attorney, $400 per hour for the mediator, and Stacy's attorney's fees by court order. For what? Nothing.