UPDATE: This seminar occurred in the past. View the complete list of upcoming seminars to discover live programs that are available now.
Have you heard about LESA’s upcoming How to Prepare for Mediation seminar? This seminar is hot on our heels, with sessions running in Edmonton on February 19 and Calgary on February 20.
This seminar is being chaired by two experienced mediators: Elaine Seifert QC and Jim McCartney. We had an opportunity to ask Elaine for more details about this seminar. Today’s blog shares her perspective about why attendees will benefit from How to Prepare for Mediation.
Why will How to Prepare for Mediation be valuable to practitioners? What will they gain?
Jim McCartney and I realized that … many, many people are coming into mediation, especially some of the young lawyers who maybe haven’t had an opportunity to have a lot of mentoring, without a real understanding the importance of preparing for mediation. Mediation isn’t just, “Oh, I’ll go and see how it is.” It’s a settlement event, a big settlement event, and you should be preparing in accordance with that. [One reason for offering this seminar] is that we weren’t seeing people prepared as well as they should be and the other is that I get calls from a lot of the younger members of the bar saying, “Okay, I’m coming to mediation. What should I be doing and how should I be preparing my client?”
[The seminar focuses on] the advocate’s role: how can you advocate for your client in mediation and how can you prepare yourself and your client to get the most success from the mediation.
What do you think will be the main takeaways for participants?
I think the main takeaway will be discovering how to best serve your client in the mediation process. [That will include] a lot of takeaways: having a good understanding of what mediation is, what it can and can’t do for you, why you would choose mediation, the benefit to your client, how to go about getting into mediation, and what preparation you have do.
I think the takeaway is going to be a good how to manual. [You will hear from] 5 experienced mediation users or providers, including counsel, a client, the lawyers who use mediation, and three experience mediators (two of whom are chartered mediators). Michael Hokanson is a mediator and counsel, so he sees things from both perspectives. I hope attendees will come away with a good little manual. We’re all writing our [papers] about what to do at each stage, so those resources will form a good little manual on how to prepare yourself and your client, with some really good tips on what to do when you get to the mediation.
So the resources that people will take away from this seminar will be really useful?
I’m hoping that’s the case. And I’m hoping the seminar will give attendees an opportunity to talk to some people who been at this for a long time, who can answer a lot of questions they might have and give them some good suggestions and mentorship. Also, the benefit to bringing in a client is that [it offers another perspective]. We always do everything from the lawyer’s perspective, but when you’ve been in this mediation business for a while you understand that lawyers and clients don’t necessarily have the same goals or perspectives.
Is there anything else you’d like to say about the seminar?
It’s going to be a little bit different from what people usually go to. It’s a kind of round table chat. We don’t have one person getting up and speaking, and then the next, and the next at the podium. It’s more back and forth, where we have more of a discussion and invite audience participation. … It’s going to be interactive, and we’re hoping to get lots of participation from the attendees. We’ll be giving a lot of information, but we also want to be available to answer questions and provide participants with the information that they want to get out of the seminar.
If you would benefit from this seminar, why not register now? Register online for Edmonton or Calgary.
