Zenith Administrator

Feedback like this is what keeps me motivated to keep going in this business:

I was referred to Venky by a common friend fourteen months into my divorce case involving custody of a child. I only wish I met Venky as soon as I decided to file for a divorce.

Venky, unlike an attorney, performed a high-level analysis of my case, informed me of its strengths and weaknesses, the possible strategy and its associated costs (both time and money) and the outcomes- most likely, likely and unlikely.

While he has more knowledge of family law and the court system than most practicing attorneys, he worked with my attorney every step of the way and complementing my attorney’s strategy and execution, thereby adding immense value.

Venky strongly advocates mediation instead of litigation as the former is the cost-effective, stress-free, time efficient approach and is not uncertain. No wonder he has 100% success as a mediator given he is meticulous, detail-oriented, logical, and has uncanny knack for visualizing a solution which is a win-win for both the parties at the table and above all, a true passion for conflict resolution.

While the prospect of having to go through a divorce is not pleasant, I strongly recommend meeting Venky even before hiring an attorney.

This was the first time I did a mediation where the parties were Spanish speakers of Mexican origin.   One side had very rudimentary English while the other side was somewhat more fluent.

One of the parties was represented by a bi-lingual attorney (and luckily that was the party with the rudimentary English) while the other party’s attorney was not a Spanish speaker (but luckily this was the party with somewhat more English).

Despite the language barrier, I did not have any problem striking a rapport with the parties.  While walking to the restroom, the party with the more fluent English confided in me that a close relative of hers was critically ill and she really wanted to get this dispute out of the way.  I assured her that I would do my best to make that happen.

Also, I established a good rapport with one of the attorneys (the one with the rudimentary English speaking client) which allowed me to persuade the client via the attorney to see reason when it appeared he was being intransigent at times.  And although the other attorney was somewhat snippy for some unknown reason (which I did not bother to delve into further), since I had established a personal rapport with his client, it was possible to address her directly which allowed me to persuade her even when her attorney was doing his little drama!

Once the relationship with the parties was established as described above, I managed to spot a solution to the problem that was apparent to me almost from the outset but which took me some effort to get the parties to see that it was a mutually advantageous resolution.  Once they did, it was smooth sailing and they were able to reach an agreement.

And the parties had enough English to fill up the feedback_forms  and give me a positive feedback – and so did the attorneys, although one of them a little more grudgingly than the other, since I had to be a bit tough with him when he was getting overly excited, unnecessarily in my opinion.

Lesson learnt – language and cultural differences do not have a barrier to a settlement – since once you go beyond these differences, the underlying disputes and the human issues involved are pretty universal.

For the first time ever, I performed a mediation where was one of the parties was not present in person but chose to participate by phone.

One would think that this would be a major handicap in having an effective mediation.  But then every mediation is different and I so proceeded without any preconceived notions.

As with any mediation, ensuring that both sides were on the same page regarding the facts is the key to having a productive discussion.

So I decided to start with the party (along with attorney) who was physically present and jotted down all the relevant facts on the white board.  To reduce the number of iterations (given that one party was not on the premises), I also got an idea of the possible solutions that would be acceptable to the party who was present.

After doing that, I returned to the party participating via phone.  To my surprise, there was practically no dispute regarding the facts.  And when it came to the solutions, I immediately realized that the variations that the party over the phone was seeking was well within what I knew would be acceptable to the other side.

And when I took the proposed solution back to the party which was present, not only were they surprised with the solution (that had eluded them for over a year of arguments and litigation) but in fact offered a unilateral concession to sweeten the deal even further!

Lesson learnt – physical presence at mediation is not necessary – but being mentally prepared to resolve the dispute is essential.

And the both the party present and the attorney gave me a highly positive feedback and the party participating by phone appeared equally happy and promised to send a feedback by fax later.

The mediation which appeared to be close to settlement failed (and ended my 100% settlement record!) – and as I realized long ago, you learn a lot more lessons from a single failure than from many successes.

Following are the main reasons why this mediation failed:

• Parties had a new incident between them during the week between mediations which aggravated the relatively amicable situation that existed after the first mediation
• Parties seemed to have spoken with their attorneys who appeared to have advised them to become non-negotiable in certain areas
• The set up for the second mediation was such that I was located in the main room and the parties were in adjacent rooms.  I found out within about 30 minutes into the mediation that both parties were able to hear the supposedly private conversations that I was having with the other party and getting unnecessarily aggravated.  Once I realized that, I moved them to a room further away but by that time the atmosphere had got somewhat vitiated, with one the parties threatening to walk out of the mediation because of hearing what the other party had said to me in “private”
• Coming to walking out issue, one of the parties routinely threatened to walk out of the mediation, every time he heard of any proposition from the other party with which he did not agree finally leading me to inform him that he would be in violation of the court order if he quit the mediation before I confirmed to both parties that the mediation was over
• For some reason, both parties started acting as if I were convinced about the “rightness” of his/her position, then it was my job to convince the other party, forgetting the fact that I was there only to facilitate them in convincing each other and reaching an agreement
• Finally, both parties appeared to have been convinced by their respective attorneys that he/she would win big if he/she went to court – and while I had a pretty good idea as to who was in the weaker legal position, I could not given them my legal opinion.

Bottom line – I realized that having attorneys in the shadows (rather than at the mediation itself) was the worst of both worlds.  And that certain matters were not meant to be settled but had to be adjudicated by a judge and only after that ruling will at least one the parties come to his/her senses and would be wishing that he/she had been more reasonable and settled the conflict during mediation.

In any case, both parties gave me feedback that they were happy with me as a mediator – and one of the parties even called me later and asked about doing another round of mediation (which I believe would have been a futile exercise in this particular case).

This was the first mediation that I had conducted where it did not conclude on the same day.  The reason was one of the parties suddenly informed me at around 11:30 pm that he had to leave at 1:30 pm.

In this particular case, both parties had attorneys but chose to attend mediation without attorneys, supposedly to allow for a more cordial atmosphere during mediation.  I soon realized that the absence of attorneys did not make the process any easier.  Since the parties had some garbled ideas regarding what they could potentially get if they went to court (with no attorneys around to correct them) and I, as the  mediator, could not give any legal advice to either party, it became a bit of a challenge to keep the parties demands realistic.

And another thing I learnt from a prior mediation is that however much the parties seem to be cordial towards each other, it is rarely a good idea to have them in the same room, especially in family mediations.  In that case, parties started talking directly to each other over their attorneys heads and that too in a foreign language and no one had any idea what they were saying to each other!

In this particular case, since one of the parties had a history of violence, a decision to keep them apart all the time to allow for a smoother mediation was a non-brainer.

Here the petitioning party came armed with so much facts and information that the fact gathering exercise from just one party ended up taking up several hours. Then the other party announced he had to leave at 1:30 pm and I decided it was time to cut to the chase and lay it out to that party.

In this case, the second party came in with a truculent attitude, already upset that I had spent an inordinate amount of time with the first party and he was in a hurry to leave.  And on top of that, he was over confident that he would do well in court and so he had a take it or leave it attitude.

What I ended up doing was to go into my full blown evaluative mode and in about 30 minutes was able to paint him a picture of how it might go in court for someone in his situation.  Somewhere within that 30 minutes, the light seemed to come on for him, he appeared to have a come-to-Jesus moment and he realized that he would be much better off making a deal during mediation rather than go to court. But by that time it was time for him to go and since it appeared to me that both parties were getting close to agreement, I scheduled a follow-up session with them a week later.

I am sure by the time they return they would have consulted with their respective attorneys.  Whether that smoothens the path to settlement or completely derails the mediation process remains to be seen.

In the end, one party left feedback which was positive (while the one in a hurry to leave, left without filling the form) – but if the next session does not result in a settlement, both parties might end up blaming me for the failure – so watch this space – I will post an update after the next session.

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This mediation started off appearing to be pretty straight forward.  The parties had  Temporary Orders in place which they were following for almost a year.  And both parties confirmed that things were going pretty well and neither side had any complaints about the other.

The problem was that one side just wanted to convert the Temporary Orders into Permanent Orders (by means of a Mediated Settlement Agreement) while the other side felt the Temporary Orders were unfair and needed to be substantially changed before a MSA could be signed.

What I found interesting was the manner in which the attorneys went about doing their jobs.  Both acted outraged claiming that their clients were the real victims and the other side was exploiting the system.  And when the attorneys act is this fashion, it definitely rubs off on the clients!

The unique thing about this mediation was that one side threatened to file a complaint using I-864, Affidavit of Support Under Section 213A of the Act if the other party did not comply with its demands.  Obviously this threat (which could have been a bluff) raised the tempers on the other side and was not particularly conducive to reaching a settlement.

Around 4:00 pm, it appeared to me that things were heading nowhere.  One of the parties started behaving rudely towards me and implied that I was not impartial.  At this point, I decided to use some reverse psychology.  I told both sides that it seemed to me that they were better off going to court and duking it out rather than waste any more time in mediation.  To my surprise, rather than walking out, both parties immediately became more reasonable and finally we did reach a settlement at around 7:00 pm.

However, by the time I finished drafting the MSA, one of the parties had to leave due to some other engagement and so the MSA was signed only by one side with the understanding that the other side would sign it once they receive it.  So far, I have not received word that that the other party signed – so I am not sure whether that party has developed “buyer’s remorse” and decided not to sign the MSA.  I am expecting that is not the case but I will know for sure shortly at which time I will post an update.

And since only one party signed the agreement on the day of the mediation, I have feedback from only one attorney and that was pretty positive, as you can see, with the other one just sending me an email saying “congratulations on your efforts”. So, from my perspective, this was a successful mediation although there was a lot of grumbling by one party from beginning to end.

And in the wise words of one of the attorneys, you know it is a good MSA when no one is completely happy!

P.S.  UPDATE – There was no “buyer’s remorse” and the other party (attorney and client) finally countersigned the MSA today – so apparently, they are still happy with the agreement, a week after the mediation took place – that is a good sign for its long term durability!   And it allowed me to maintain my 100% settlement record!!