ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the skills and competencies judicial mediators employ in mediating actual cases and how these serve to produce concessions from the litigants and often bilateral dispute resolution. It considers how law-infused judicial mediation differs from other forms of mediation. The chapter addresses some specific practical tasks of judicial mediators: obtaining case histories and making initial assessments of party volition and settlement "ripeness"; and information gathering and establishing opening positions. It also considers the distinctly law-infused nature of concession-seeking injudicial mediation and discusses the similarities and differences between private and public judicial mediation. The chapter elaborates some broader implications of conducting situated, naturalistic studies of work. The distinctive concession-seeking skills of both public and private judicial mediators involved drawing on their legal knowledge, reasoning and experience on the bench-not to adjudicate outcomes--but to elicit concessions and agreements. Private sessions comprised the heart of the judge-mediator's settlement work and concession-seeking tactics were primarily utilized during these private sessions.
