As a mediator who has provided internships in mediation to both legal and mental health professionals for many years, I frequently come across a common assumption that interns from both professions tend to make at the onset of their training.

Initially, interns from both backgrounds, would only choose to work together in a mediation when there is a need to combine different areas of knowledge. For example, mediators who have a legal background assume that they would only involve a mental health professional to help with a parenting plan. Alternatively, mediators with a mental health background assume that they would only involve a lawyer mediator to assist with the financial aspects of mediation.

However, there is so much more that partnering can offer to the parties in the mediation process.

A co-mediation partnership can be useful in high conflict cases where parties struggle to accept and work with the neutrality of the mediator. When parties are locked into a dynamic of attempting to get the mediator to align with them, two mediators allow for parties to be supported by one mediator at any given time without a rigid alignment forming. Thus the mediation team as a whole, can preserve its role of neutrality as between the parties and yet the parties feel individually supported when necessary.

A mediation partnership also allows the mediators to double caucus so as to contain the volatility between the parties in the room. With this kind of dynamic, it is helpful not to leave either party alone for an extended amount of time. Each mediator can debrief with each client and coach them to return to a joint session in order to voice their views in a way that opens further dialogue.

Often these kinds of high conflict mediations are so exhausting that partnering in the process allows for each mediator to take a necessary pause to gain perspective while the other mediator does the work. It is also helpful for the co-mediators to occasionally caucus alone together in order to regroup and make meaning of any new developments that have emerged in the room, which often can happen.

Each mediator can also share the responsibility to take notes, allowing the other mediator to do the work. The process of note taking is especially important in open mediation, when the summary notes of the mediation could be admissible in legal proceedings.

Partnering as co-mediators can be most powerful in assisting mediating parties to develop insight into how to have a constructive conversation with one another.

The essence of my mediation style is to assist the parties to have a constructive conversation together. If they are unable to do so, mediation often devolves into a negotiation where the mediator brokers a deal in a very directive way, similar to what a Pre-trial judge would tend to do. The parties have abandoned their willingness to struggle if necessary, to communicate directly with one another and at some level they have abandoned their control of the process.

If the parties are committed to having that "difficult conversation" together, two mediators can provide intense coaching for the parties to relearn how to communicate in a way that allows their dialogue to open into further dialogue as opposed to shutting it down. This approach requires the parties to take a reflective stance on the nature of their earlier conversations together and to take personal responsibility to change their part of the dialogic process.

Two mediators can model this kind of respectful dialogue together; they can actively listen to one another, reframe what the other has said and even model respectful disagreement.

I have had the good fortune to work with three very talented and competent social workers over the last fifteen years who have not only played the role of child consultant in parenting mediations with me but they have also partnered with me as co-mediators on many occasions.

In all cases, we have developed a deep partnership that has been built on spending a lot of unbilled hours together, debriefing after mediation sessions and preparing for those challenging sessions ahead. We work together reflectively, taking the time to understand how a session went and how we might have handled it differently. We work to maintain clarity about the roles we intend to play in a session but we work not to be enslaved by them.

In this way, we continue to work toward implementing a seamless flow of work in the room where each co-mediator trusts what the other is doing and where either mediator can move spontaneously in a new direction if necessary.

Developing partnership in this way immensely broadens the repertoire of skills that you can offer to parties in mediation.

You move beyond simply combining your different areas of expertise and you begin to tap into your complementary strengths as people. This possibility is what I hope to leave with my interns as they go out into the world to mediate.