ABSTRACT
This chapter examines several very common obstacles to settlement in large money damage cases and some of the practices judicial mediators regularly employ to deal with them. It identifies some distinctive problems of conducting settlement work in multi-party and complex cases and how judge-mediators regularly facilitate settlement in such cases. The chapter focuses on the similarities and differences in the problems and practices for conducting settlement work in court versus privately. It suggests the problems, goals and practices of judge-mediators may differ in some respects depending upon whether the mediation is conducted in a public or private forum. In both the public and private setting, judicial mediators encounter many similar recurrent obstacles to settlement of large money damage cases and often use comparable skills in addressing them. In the public setting, the judge-mediator's task is largely to accomplish as much settlement progress as s/he can give significant time constraints.
