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[Music] hello everyone and thank you for joining us for this event on advanced issues and online mediation i hope that you're all having a wonderful day wherever you're tuning in from i'm going to start just by explaining a little bit about media guru in case you haven't joined us before i know many of you might have mediate guru is a social initiative led by members across the globe our aim is to bridge the gap between the public and litigation by creating a social awareness campaign raising awareness of mediation as the future we've conducted several successful webinars in over 60 countries around the world and our aim is to bring you the best lecture series with access to the best speakers around the world so that you can add value to your legal career and your studies so i'm going to introduce our two wonderful speakers for today first we have miss anna sambold and miss anna is an internationally recognized attorney mediator arbitrator and leader in the field of conflict resolution she has served as a neutral in over a thousand business related cases she is recognized as meeting the highest independent international standards for mediators established by the international mediation institute and she is a member of the international arbitral women the chartered institute of arbitrators and the international council for online dispute resolution currently anna serves as an executive officer on the american bar association section of dispute resolution she's co-chair of the advanced mediation and advocacy skills institute executive officer of the california lawyers association litigation section and chair of the san diego county bar association's adr section she was also served as an adjunct professor of law for the california western law school teaching extensively in conflict resolution and communication skills and she works tirelessly to promote the use and benefits of alternative dispute resolution we also have with us miss suzanne guthrie and cesan is nationally recognized as one of the top family law and mediation attorneys in the united states she's been helping individuals and families to overcome separation and force for the last 30 years susan's also were regarded experts in online mediation and has been training colleagues on the ethics of conducting mediations online for the last two years in 2018 she established learnt mediate online and she now offers more than seven programs for professionals all designed to help them take their career to new heights susan is also an award-winning podcast host having reached the podcast listening audience of almost 4 million in the past two years she is the creator of the award-winning podcast divorce and beyond susan is also honored to serve on the executive council of the american bar association section of dispute resolution as the membership officer and to be co-chair of the mediation committee and advanced mediation skills institute susan was also recently awarded the prestigious l randolph lowry awards from the southern california mediation association which is an award presented to an exceptional individual who has been who has inspired us through their commitment to education in dispute resolution so in a moment i'm going to pass over to our two wonderful speakers for today but first i'd just like to remind you all that you can leave your comments and questions in the chat box below and we will monitor them throughout the session and at the end we will have question and answer session okay so without further ado i'm going to pass over to anna and susan and you will see me later hello everybody it's so nice to see you all here and be here again with um everyone with mediate guru and with my good friend anna sambold hi anna it's good to see you hello everyone i'm delighted to be here today on on obviously it's a pleasure to present again with my good friend and colleague susan on i'm just just like you uh hear from us uh we are both very passionate about mediation and we have a lot of experience in online mediation and the greatest thing is that we have totally different specialties so um you guys are gonna get the benefit of that uh she's a top law divorce and uh mediator and attorney and and business specialist in online mediation and she had that learned to mediate online academy that i really recommend if you want to get deeper into the issues in online mediation and while i'm more of a commercial mediator an arbitrator and and but we are both very involved with the american bar association and by the way uh she is the membership officer and uh and now the budget officer i used to be the educational officer but we always like to um to talk about all the benefits of joining the american bar association and by the way it's free for law students i know so many students know that but if you join the aba um you're a law student you don't have to pay anything it's totally free and and you get tons of free membership benefits right susan absolutely and um for only 25 u.s uh dollars per year you actually get a premium membership with comes with even more benefits but anna and i are both um very active in the dispute resolution section so just remember you can join the american bar association as well as the dispute resolution section and we put on a number of on us that's a high bar for the number of programs and and quality of those programs that we put on but we would love to see you there if anyone would like to reach out to me and has any questions at susan learn to mediate online.com i'm happy to help you get help you get signed up with the american bar association and now that you guys know about us we would love to know more about you so if you can go ahead and please respond to poll questions that we have for all of you on tv opera could you run the first question uh so we're currently running the first question um which is um the participants primary connection with mediation okay currently the vast majority are saying as a law student listen okay so we have 73 law students sixteen percent mediators two percent lawyers one percent professors and five percent others okay great that's wonderful i'd love to see law students so interested in mediation especially online mediation um because it's so near and dear to my heart but that's a wonderful sign i think for the state of uh dispute resolution in the world right now that's amazing i know that's awesome and let's see this the second question was um where are you from um i love how the numbers are going up from asia yeah it's night time for most people that are watching us then is what i'm taking from this you're all sitting there at the end of a long day anna anna is on the west coast of the united states it's the crack of dawn for her i'm uh i'm a little further uh east so i'm a little it's a little later in the morning for me but that's mostly i know i was about to say good morning but i realized of course in india is the evening uh because here is 7 30 in the morning on and for years season is 10 30 right yes yep in the new york times yeah so well that's wonderful um you know and i'm excited and first i did want to also just say thank you to mediate guru because i am really impressed by this is on a second um anna i think you were their very first international that was the first one yeah program i was six or seven um thrilled to be back and absolutely thrilled to see how your outreach is really making an impact on really the world i mean the number of people that have reached out for these programs is truly to be commended and is amazing so i'm thrilled to be back and especially to be able to do it as i said with anna um and talk to you all about these advanced issues in online mediation so anna you spoke about mediation i spoke about online mediation when we previously presented and so our goal today is to really give people a little bit deeper dive into some of the higher level issues that they might run into as online mediators yeah i and i and um and i think you covered the basics in your webinar right yeah now we can go dive deeper into the advanced issues and online mediation um and now that we have um a pretty good idea about our audience so let's start with a good uh overview of of online mediation so well since kobe 19 is struck in march of 2020 this year um mediation well it is is amazing how mediation especially online mediation to cause because mediation the regular in-person mediation was already a viable option for resolving disputes but once um covering 18 um struck in march a lot of courts around the world were closed we have travel restrictions we have strict lockdowns and obviously that influence um and people people that was involved in a dispute they were always they were thinking wow what i can do with my dispute where i can take it how i can get a result and online mediation ended up being a really great option um to try to work something out it was safe and it was um efficient you didn't have to travel anywhere and you can meet online using a online platform a video conference platform on and and take care of your dispute uh with a neutral mediator um so it was a i think in some way that's one of the the few positive outcomes of of the pandemic that basically force us to innovate and to try uh new things and to use technology to resolve disputes um because this is basically what it is uh online mediation is all is mediation but using technology using a video conference or using an online platform to deliver the mediation service on on and in the beginning i was amazed what i remember talking to susan in the beginning of march about about how people was still reluctant to try um my my the advocates in my cases and parties sometimes they were skeptical and they were afraid to try and they were kind of saying well let's wait for the this pandemic to be over but by april when the people realize that that we didn't know how long it's gonna take that's when people start giving it a try and and i'm amazed now everybody is embracing it and loving it and i think it's gonna stay here even post pandemic so learning more about online mediation is i think so is a necessity nowadays because the course are still like trying to catch up with all the backlog that they have in cases uh here at least for example in california cases have been vacated for the whole to 2020 and they're just taking care of criminal cases now and so pretty much mediation and that have been an incredible remote tool for resolving disputes and i know that susan um um did a survey um among mediators and parties and and advocates about the uses of online mediation susan what did you find out about it yeah it was actually really interesting we've been doing this um first favorite phase of our survey for the past couple of months we're just about to close it um and much to what anna just said you know anna and i have been doing mediations online for a few years now not just since covid started you know anna's one of our leading international mediators and bilingual mediators so the the ease of mediating cross-borders has been something that has drawn her to online mediation for years and uh you know i had my own reasons having moved around the united states um to start mediating online but we always found that when we would talk to our colleagues at least they were reluctant to try new technology to try doing something in a different way and so when they were forced online they actually felt forced online right when coveted and people could no longer meet and do their mediations in person they felt somewhat coerced into having to try this and so there was a great reluctance that we were finding so i was very interested when we put the poll out one of the questions was when you are able to go back to doing in-person mediations will you continue to offer online mediation services or offer your services online and 100 of the of the participants who answered that question said that they would either continue to offer both inline and online services but a very significant number said they were just going to stay with online services and not go back to having an in-person office so i think that that shows from going from feeling like they had to go online that this was something that was needed but not necessarily wanted now when given the option everyone plans to continue online and many can plan to continue only online so i do think that that's very significant and part of it is because mediators are enjoying the additional benefits of online mediation but on i think you can agree it's also because the participants the clients are enjoying the benefits of online mediation yeah it's amazing to to see the difference and to see people embracing it now and and i just love it because it's something that we were trying to get people to do for the longest time right susan is like we have conversations with susan all the time about and i always told her like oh my god i can't believe it every single week i had to convince an advocate or a client to try it online mediation because they're really skeptical about it but now everybody loves it and everybody's embracing it and it's gonna stay here forever even post pandemic so let's keep learning more about it so definitely all vr works right susan yeah absolutely these are just a couple of quotes from people who have taken uh my online program but as on ana said you know back two years ago when i started the program i i maybe taught a couple of hundred people um how to get online but since covid started i've i think it's over 17 000 people have taken the program and i have these two are just two random comments of what i've gotten from people who took the program but you know this is the type of reaction across the board that practitioners are having to mediating online so just really something that i think you know online mediation not only works but it is definitely here to stay so now that we know kind of the basics of on online mediation what what what do i would like to start is with the um what is the beyond the basics and i think so the the first advanced issue in online mediation um is is if you want to provide an online mediation service or if you're going to participate in an online uh mediation the first um the first thing to consider is the ethical obligation that you have to be competent to learn about the process to understand how the video platform works and how the process works because it's um for mediators and for advocates there's um ethical duty to learn to be diligent and learn about the process so that's why i'm really really excited to see that so many law students are interested in learning about this process because in that way you're fulfilling your obligation of being competent and you're getting ready for the future of dispute resolution um and we use in different platforms um a lot of people use it zoom but susan what what else is out there besides soon to to conduct an online mediation yeah this is one of the things i'm asked probably most often about online mediation um what other platforms do you use what other platforms are available because in that same survey that we referenced earlier one of the questions we also asked is what platform are you using and i think it was 97 of participants said they were using zoom but when i talked to participants who weren't using zoom and i hear from a num number of practitioners especially if you're dealing with insurance companies if you're dealing with some of the larger law firms and some larger companies as clients many of them are uneasy or not willing to allow their employees to use zoom so you are in a position as a practitioner as the mediator where you need to be able to provide an alternate platform and i would argue that just as a professional we should be proficient in more than one online platform so the three we have listed here i just want to bring to your attention because they are all platforms that were created for attorneys and online dispute resolution so they from the ground up were built to service our industry and that means things like confidentiality and privacy have been in an integral part of the creation of these platforms they all happen to be out of australia and i think that i know we have some aussies with us on the platform i commend you all your country is way ahead of most of the world in online dispute resolution in dispute resolution in general um it is the go-to um way of resolving disputes and conflicts in australia but legaler modern and resolved disputes online rdo are all three wonderful platforms that have been in existence between seven and ten years so these are not new to the market uh not created just because of kovid and they have an ease of use and an ability to function for what we need as mediator the functionality that we need that was built in whereas zoom we're learning to adapt a meeting platform for our dispute resolution process so i do recommend that you go and check these out legaler right now is running a one-year free membership um i believe that it is dispute um no i'm sorry remote with a small r remote dash one nine is the code and you can get a free year but all three of them are fantastic and have very competitive pricing and and i believe that um i guess and depending on the country where you are um some mediators have preferences for specific like online video conference platforms right susan because i'm i hear from friends in england that they love um i don't know webex another ones i know i know the ones that you use i don't get it and they use those they're using blue jeans and other ones are using microsoft teams it's just amazing how many on video conference and and online platforms are we have available for mediators to conduct an online mediation so but the point is that whatever platform you choose be sure that you understand how that works um because just like i mentioned um the first ethical consideration to have to keep in mind is you have to be competent and you have to understand how that works um and so let's go to our next aspect and that is client preparation because one thing that is very very crucial in an online mediation is all the preparation before the mediation session on on and then especially when you have clients that are represented by an advocate you have to basically as a mediator you have to prep the advocate on the advocate how to prepare the client so you have to be really really good at um preparing everyone and make them feel familiar with the process because what i feel is like people is skeptical and is reluctant and is afraid to try because of the technology involved with the process so if you make them feel comfortable with the whole process and you just plan and you educate them about it um they will feel better and they will feel at ease when mediation comes and so i guess the first recommendation here and this um in regard to this aspect is to create an document um um that educates the advocate on the client about the whole process just lay out uh what's going to happen what do you want them to be prepared what did you want them to know on specifying and even uh um providing some hyperlinks to video tutorials and that's what i used to do in the beginning um when in march or april because a lot of people were they didn't know all what to expect but soon for example that i was using it on and so i provided a lot of tutorials um that explain how to do a breakout session how to um screen share how and just to feel comfortable with the whole process at the same time to prepare my clients i always offer a pre-mediation video conference just to practice and to give them the feeling of of what they're going to experience when we have the mediation and i found that really helpful and may feel people at ease when they have the chance to try it on and during the pre-mediation video conference they have the chance to ask me questions and say oh so this is how it's gonna work and like yeah this is um we can try different things and i can show them and walk through the whole process so i definitely recommend to offer that on on and and because remember the whole point is to make them feel uh familiar with the process and with the technology involved with with online mediation susan you have anything else to add well just you know for those of you who are in law school or are advocates at this moment um and might be going into a mediation as a representative of a client in the mediation always remember that as the advocate it is your responsibility to make sure that your client is ready to go online that might mean you need to either yourself or have a staff member on board that client and how to use the technology um walk them through it but also remember if you're bringing witnesses if you are bringing in experts if you have other participants they also need to be onboarded so that they feel that they are comfortable with the platform i can't you know agree more with what ana said doing all of that before you have the very first formal mediation session is really critical because it allows you to get everything out of the way getting people comfortable they get to meet you they get to feel a little more comfortable in the setting and you as the mediator can be doing things like checking their internet connection to make sure they have a good internet connection making sure that their camera and their lighting are working well and that you can see their face that their audio is working well you can be checking all that they don't even know you're doing it but that's why that pre-mediation meeting can be just so critical and then some of the other issues anna that i know we run into and are asked about probably most often i actually saw a couple of questions in the uh in the chat right now those issues of privacy and confidentiality uh because this is probably what i think most people see is the greatest vulnerability of being online right you are online and therefore um you're i always say the biggest difference with an online mediation and an in-person mediation is that the participant's environment is out of the control of the mediator so when they're in our conference room we think at least we have the illusion that we are in control of that environment that we are you know we know who else is in the room we know um whether they're filming it and all of that information but when they're remote from us we've lost some of that control and that's where people start to get worried i will say and i've said this in every i think every single online mediation uh webinar that i have ever done is that it's pretty much an illusion that we're in control in person as well as online if people are intent on circumventing privacy or and confidentiality they're going to figure out a way that they can do it and the number one way they do it is with this little guy the cell phone the mobile phone um this can be recording this can be taking audio they can call someone and they can be listening in on a telephone line that's still open so unless you're banning cell phones from the room um in an in person you still have issues but as anna and i both believe strongly and i know she does this with all of her clients as well as you know you we as the mediators are in charge it is our process or our we are you know running the process for our clients that's one of the things that they are hiring us for so where we know there are vulnerabilities it is our responsibility to develop protocols around those make some rules and then educate our clients and and let them know what those rules are and why it's so important that they follow them why making sure that it is a private and confidential proceeding is to their benefit i find it's not just a matter of telling them what the rules are tell them why the rules are there because people are much more likely to follow them when they understand it's because there's a benefit to them and so that's one of those issues that i think is really important now anna have you run into issues with cyber security well no so much into cyber security but i want to add um something about privacy and confidentiality uh because uh um i never never never started mediation until i get the confidentiality agreement and the ground rules the document that i sent before the mediation signed by all the participants and i'm very strict about it because one of them um one of them the i guess the main value of mediation is that um is a confidential process so i want to make a point and i want to i want to be sure that all the participants understand the importance of keeping the the process confidential on private so in in the document that i sent before the mediation i explained the ground rules and i explained that nobody um that that is no authorized to be participate participating in the mediation can be participating without letting me know let out let everyone know and at the same time i want them to know that nobody is allowed to record that nobody is allowed to be in the same room that they haven't signed the confidentiality agreement and in many cases i have and and it's pretty funny i and in the middle of a mediation and i start hearing somebody whispering and i realized that somebody is talking to the person in an online mediation and right away i stopped the whole mediation and i say um are you with somebody else in the room um and people sometimes i get old no no no no one is here but i always remind them like look it's okay you want to have somebody else with you and sometimes they have their wife or they have the son or or somebody's just curious to know more about the mediation the online mediation process so i said look is this fine and you want to have somebody else but just let me know and i send them the confidentiality agreement and have them sign because i want them to know that um that the the process is confidential and i want them to agree to the rules of the com to keeping them the process confidential so um inside referring us to the cyber security well this is something that is becoming more and more important nowadays on immediate and arbitrary for the american arbitration association and icdr on on the the the big issue this year was cyber security so when we were going through the refresher class this year it was all about cyber security and that made me realize how important it is for um for advocates for mediators for arbitrators to keep good cyber security measures and and have a good cyber security hygiene that's how they call it and um what i mean by that is all of us especially when we're handling um cases of an important information we are accumulating tons of sensitive information in our computers and on our devices and that is super important to keep it safe because um if something happened if you get hacked or you get a virus and and your whole system is destroyed all that sensitive information it can be taken away from um and that is a catastrophic thing that can happen um be so you have to keep um you have to identify what sensitive information you have from your cases and your computer and delete information that you don't need after the case is done be sure that you upload it to a cloud service or dropbox or some type of online platform where it can can be keep safe on and and and just don't click in attachments that you don't know um obviously that's the easiest way to get into your computer and so just keep good cyber security hygiene and that's why um i want to mention it now because nowadays everything pretty much is going online and so options are that something can happen with your with your computer with your computer system or where your emails and what all the sensitive information that you have in a storage yeah absolutely i was just going to say and emails as well don't send sensitive information via an email attached to an email um i still get people sending me their tax returns attached to an email address you know their emails and i was like no no no you know i know and that's what i'm a big fan of dropbox i use it a lot and now i ask all my clients to send me and upload and everything up there because in that way you keep everything safe yeah and about zumba me some moment it refers to adam i don't know um you all remember but in the beginning of the pandemic when everybody started using zoom um there were a lot of um news about people strangers intruding into soon meetings and posting pornography and on inappropriate pictures and and soon meetings um so people was um talking about oh well is not really secure and everything um but uh i read a lot about it i'm on on the the the the whole point was that people weren't keeping the link to the zoom meeting uh private or they were in training with everyone and that's how people strangers were getting access to the link to getting to soon meetings so so that's what i will always recommend to uh create a link ask in your clients and your advocates to keep it safe um don't share it publicly just share with your client and and always admit people enable some white some way uh you a procedure to admit people into the online mediation and keep people waiting maybe in the waiting room until you identify this person and and you you can admit it and that way no strangers can get into your online mediation right susan absolutely and and zoom has actually since zoom is the most used platform zoom has done a great job in also enhancing their security they've made the sign on links and meeting ids longer they've made the waiting room a default and very soon they're actually going to have video in the waiting room so that the host will be able to see visually the people in the waiting room so you'll be able to identify them not just by um their name that's you know listed in the waiting room you'll actually be able to see them uh but really the biggest problem with zoom bombing was that people weren't protecting their uh sign-on information so i see this one anna is a big one because i see a lot of people asking about this tell the people yeah this is always the question this is the number one issue that i guess right in online mediation person um for some reason everybody thinks that an online mediation creating rapport and managing emotions is is more difficult than any person mediation but i i and susan we with susan we talk about this all the time and we don't believe that we believe that is the opposite and an online mediation you can see the people's faces right right there okay so you can tell right away you can read people's emotions even better than an in-person mediation and that's why this is one of the things that i love online mediation because i think so even i get even more from people in an online mediation i now i remember when i uh when i used to do any personal mediations uh sometimes i i i missed people's uh expressions because we have i do a lot of multi-party um commercial mediation so i have like maybe six seven people in one conference room and then i have to go to another conference room and deal with another six people so it was really hard to keep track of everybody's um facial expressions and obviously i missed a lot because i was normally talking to just the advocate on but now i feel like even and the client uh because we have him right there and so there's no way to ignore that there's no way to dismiss uh somebody that is right there and is making facial expressions and so i think it's so much easier to read emotions and so much easier to um to connect with people and get them engaged in the process now i feel like clients i have the chance to talk to the clients directly i get to know more the clients because i can see the background and i can see maybe we can do a small chat about oh wow i i love the painting that you have in the background oh i see them sometimes petting a dog or petting a cat and we start talking about their pet and and and and and another thing is i feel like people sometimes forget that online mediation you need to use exactly the same skills that you normally use for an in-person mediation to create rapport and it's on and just manage emotions just the same skills but in a in through their own video conference so the same skills that you normally use to communicate and manage emotions like um asking open-ended questions rephrasing summarizing uh those are the ones that you have to be used to in the online setting on an active listening and one of the things that i always remember from my classes i always told my students too and i remember susan you know this too that our communication is 55 comes from our facial expressions 25 comes from the tone of our boys and only 20 comes from the words that we're saying so that is amazing to me so and one thing that i'm i i really really appreciated more about online mediation is um recently i did an uh in-person mediation it was a really um delicate and really tragic case about the dead of um a small child and they wanted me to do it in person and i figured okay i'm gonna do it in person and and i realized that one of the things was that everybody had to wear a mask and everybody had to be six feet apart um so because everybody was wearing a mask i couldn't tell i couldn't tell the people's expressions and i couldn't tell that the people was upset or they were happy uh and it was hard to read for me what they were feeling and i really at that point i realized wow and online mediation is so much better because i can see people without wearing a mask and that in a new person mediation where everybody's wearing a mask so i can have them right there physically present but i can't tell if they're upset or they're happy because they're wearing a mask and we're wearing a mask you don't get anything so that's why i i believe that that online mediation is even so much better for establishing rapport and managing emotion bye susan yeah i i mean i've never noticed a deficiency in being able to read emotions read body language i would say when you're talking about creating rapport and you and i have talked about this anna two things that i think are really important and this kind of refers back to what we were talking about with the pre-mediation meeting is if you can if you have the opportunity as the mediator to do a separate meeting pre-mediation with each side that also allows you to start creating that rapport because you're getting that one-on-one time with the client or clients with the advocate or advocates and it gives them that ability to speak to you directly let you know their concerns what their interests are so that's one great tip another one is that i spoke with a colleague another colleague of ana's in mine at the southern california mediation association dr debra dupree who's a psychologist and we were talking about managing those emotions online because sometimes you know we're dealing with people in conflict they get upset emotions run high and we might reach out and pat someone's hand or touch their shoulder to show our empathy or show that we understand their emotional content and dr deborah said well you know you just because you can't do that through a screen you can verbally describe what you would do or say you know bob i can see that this is a very emotionally sensitive topic for you or i can see this creates you know a great deal of sadness for you or if we were together i would reach out and touch your hand to let you know that i really do understand and can see that this is really emotional for you so you can use your words to create that emotional connection you can lean into the screen you know all of what ana said i mean i really think that that that you know the fact that this is such a visual and audio experience when so much of our communication is visual and audio it makes it the perfect it's actually better than in in person um for creating that personal touch virtually now another question i don't know how this was a question that was coming along quite a bit or in the early days of mediation i think most mediators have found ways to do an end run because really one of the things that we're hopeful that we're going to have is going to happen as a result of our mediation is we're going to come to an agreement where we're going to be able to uh come to terms and so often we at the end of the mediation before everyone leaves there's a desire to get that document drafted and get it signed by everyone so there's you know how are we going to create the document um and again this is an area where i think online mediation is far superior to in-person mediation because you can throw a word document up on the screen share you can create a google doc and share it amongst all everyone one of the advocates this is what happens in most of my mediations one of the advocates will have already have a template or something to work from and we can put that on a screen and we can all be looking at exactly the same document as the changes are being made in real time to create that document and so i actually find it goes much faster and it's easier for the advocates to then review that document with their clients in the same way they can pull it up in a breakout room and go over that document in screen share with their client and then come back with any needed changes but it goes much more quickly and then when it needs to be signed i mean by far um anna maybe you do something different but by far i use an e-signature platform i happen to use docusign um the biggest fan of doku sign i love it right i i i like i sure got that is just the greatest thing ever i had a 14 hour um um online mediation a couple weeks ago i broke my record on a i had people from all over california and mexico i do a lot of mediations involving um people from different nationalities and multilingual and i have around 12 people involved in that mediation and we start at 9 00 a.m on by 11 p.m finally after like 14 hours we reached an agreement on and i was just afraid that if if i let the people go without signing the agreement i don't know if the people would regret it the following day because i have seen that happen that so i wanted to be sure that everybody signed that agreement before um ending the mediation so what i did and thank god at that point i knew about docusign i was trying it i just uploaded the agreement into docusign and i and docusign you just have to type the email address of every participant and and they send it to this person to every participant they sign it and you get back the agreement sign so by midnight everybody sell everybody sign that settlement agreement and we were done and i was happy because i'm like okay nobody can regret it no everybody already signed it so this is just the greatest thing and i really recommend it docusign yeah although i do want to just point out quickly some of those platforms that i was talking about earlier um i think modern and legaler both have e-signatures in as a part of the platform so another reason to maybe check those out oh zoom fatigue and that is uh something that is uh happening now with so much zoom meetings and and being online so susan this is a topic that has been seen now in the news so what is exactly some fatigue well you know zoom fatigue is it actually is a real psychological phenomena it's it's our brain chemistry responds to being constantly online in a fashion that actually brings about real fatigue and i can attest to it i i will raise my hand since covet started and we started doing back-to-back to back-to-back online meetings i will sit in this chair at this computer eight nine ten hours a day not moving not doing anything other than actively engaging with the screen and i am literally exhausted at the end of the day and it is a function of our brain uh the more meetings that you will participate in and the fact that all of our participants are often with different backgrounds and a lot going on and because we are so engaged in seeing everyone's expression hearing the inflection in everyone's tones we're actually getting a great meal deal more data for our brain to process than we do normally in an in-person meeting so it actually is fatiguing so you know there's there's a number of studies but on the screen here we have some of the top uh tips that we will put in there and i do think you know avoid multitasking we are those people who will be like answering emails on our phone doing this trying to answer the questions if you can be focused on the one task that will be easier for you the number one tip for me build-in breaks do for some reason we tend to schedule ourselves like for an hour of a meeting and then we start the next meeting right after that and we start the next meeting right after that if you can do them on the quarter hour or give yourself 15 minute breaks go take a quick walk you're going to feel a lot better having the neutral background i saw a question in the chat about having people in a mediation using a virtual background i use one as the mediator in my trainings as well as when i'm the mediator uh because again i i keep it very plain very neutral so that there's less stimulation for the people who are in the room i agree with anna that it's nice and in my pre-mediation i will sometimes have um my real background there because you can create some rapport by talking about people's environments but during the actual process when there's a lot going on the more neutral everyone's background the better some mediators i know send out a neutral background to all of the participants so everyone has the same screen background um so that it's very very neutral um and the other thing and maybe you found this too as well anna for some reason we have given up on emails and phone calls and we do everything these days as a zoom call or as a video call and often a phone call or an email would have sufficed yeah totally on on and well we have to be aware and unconscious about how much time we're spending online and that way you don't get because at least when i i'm mediating the whole day at the end of the day and like mentally a drain i like and i realized it was because of the intensity of the whole already dealing with the conflict and disputes and partying dispute is is very stressful and very demanding and and so plus having the online setting for so long obviously so you have to give yourself a break i always recommend i always have in my desk you should see this right now i have snacks i have water i have my coffee i i have everything around me ready to go just in case exactly just in case that i start getting hungry and cranky um and and another thing i in the beginning i used to be a really big fan of virtual backgrounds but when i read something about how much um it demands from people's mind when you have different backgrounds virtual backgrounds i i start being a big fan of plain backgrounds so right now i have this just plain wall but um but you're gonna use a virtual background if you have a big mess at home and you can hide it okay fine get a virtual background but if you get a virtual background be sure that you get a green screen like this you see that uh because otherwise you get a virtual background on and without the green screen and you're going to start disappearing when you move around and that i think that is really annoying and really distracting so um that will be my recommendation in that regard so um so susan let's talk about unconscious bias what is exactly that you know this is an area that was brought to my attention attention at one of the american bar association dispute resolution section programs that you organized when you were our programs chair and i i thought it was such a brilliant insight because we all have you know the the issue of unconscious unconscious bias is vast but when you are online there are certain circumstances that can lead to unconscious bias that we are unconscious of and it's in one of the reasons i like to talk about this is because i want people to be more aware of this so imagine or think about those instances where you are in an online meeting with someone whose wi-fi is not working well so they're getting that strange audio wow or their screen keeps freezing how do you feel about that person most of the time you're going to feel irritated with that person why didn't they make sure they had a good wi-fi connection why don't they you know why didn't they do a better job or when you have a person who doesn't know how to use the platform or who sets up their screen so that you're looking up their nose the entire time like this or any of those issues that show that someone is not proficient online or is having issues online that can actually lead to unconscious bias issues and not in a way that i think anyone ever thinks of those things arising but that's one of the reasons why participants need to be onboarded and understand and have good skills with their online platform because you especially if you're their advocate you don't want your client going online and freezing and irritating the other participants or the mediator or the arbitrator or whoever you are dealing with and creating these issues of unconscious bias and we as mediators need to realize some people have issues that they i mean the wi-fi just may not be good i've had every issue you can have with wi-fi and internet connection since uh since govid started but it's one of those things that we need to be aware of and we need to take measures against i know especially as a mediator that we pledge to be neutral on um impartial and it's pretty hard to be neutral and impartial with when you one one of the parties is having technical difficulties and it started getting very frustrated because this is like um um like basically reigning the whole mediation process and that's why it's super important to prepare the client and the advocate before the mediation session and remember to educate the client as much as possible on the on the advocate on and explain everything possible everything in the process be sure that you are not in a public place be sure that you know you have a secure wi-fi and a strong wi-fi be sure that your technical equipment works be sure that your video works your audio works because there's nothing more frustrating that when you can see the person but you can hear them or when you can hear them but you can see them uh or when they're sitting behind a window that's another thing that i always see sometimes people don't realize when you're sitting behind a window you in the shadow and you can see them and it's so hard for an advocate that is arguing about um an argument case for the client and you can see them because in the shade and so is is super important and those little things influence and your perception of the advocate of the client and so you want your client or your um or your case to um um just be sure that everything works and be sure that that in the way that you look you look professional um that is gonna influence it definitely in in the outcome of the mediation and another point that we want to talk about is power imbalance and i see this all the time and in my employment mediations i do a lot of employment cases on and sometimes what happened is i have a self-represented employee that is suing a company when um so um so sometimes the company has the president the ceo the human resources person sometimes they have the the in-house counsel on the president of the board of directors and i have the self-represented party in the other side so on when we have a joint session that is not pretty common in my mediation but in employment cases i i start with a joint session so a the power imbalance is more evident because i see seven six people from one side and i see the self-represented employee in the other and that is obviously um visible abusively is no really um um i will say balance so what i recommend um that's what i start doing right now is if i'm gonna have an immediate for a different federal agencies like the equal employment opportunity commission and they're trying and they are already figuring out that they have to limit the number of participants representing one side and that way the employee or the plaintiff doesn't feel um overwhelmed and intimidated by the by the seven people the eight people showing up with the other side so now um the policies um they're evolving and changing and now for example we are requiring that if we're gonna have one self-represented party the other side can bring only one his lawyer and that's it they can bring 10 people and that helps on to keep the balance and the mediation um and the last issue that i want to talk about is multilingual parties because um this is something that i think is is an is another benefit of doing it online when you're dealing with people that speak different languages uh like i do i do it all the time people that speak spanish people who speak italian um i speak um are different languages and it's just so much easier um to deal with with everyone online because what i do sometimes um is i have i conduct mostly of my mediations between different breakout rooms so i admit everyone into the waiting room and i assign them to different breakout rooms so i can talk to one in spanish and then i can talk to the other one in english and it makes it so much easier the whole process and while if i doing it in person i'm gonna have probably gonna have to have a translator or somebody to translate to the other side so that always helps us on um and and i i'm like we keep saying online mediation is so much easier and much so much effective and convenient for everyone so we just love that part is susan is anything else that we should add no you know the only thing on multilingual parties is um zoom does have the ability to have um a transcription um in some different languages you do have to upgrade your account to one of the higher level accounts but if you are someone like anna who does a number of international and multilingual mediations sometimes people find that very helpful um and then yes don't miss so anna has a wonderful article that you can get on her website the do's and don'ts of online mediation there are a lot of both right a lot of dues and a lot of don'ts and and susan has really good resources all over her website and she had an amazing podcast she's the queen of podcasts and so please listen to that one on and i think so we are probably run out of time right for so um so let's take some questions now okay thank you so much anna and susan that was a really um insightful and informative presentation lots of good advice for our viewers um we do have some good questions actually so the first one is from elliot holland and he says um should you assist or correct a person's mistakes and if so how hi elliot elliot's one of my colleagues and friends from the american bar association section of dispute resolution he's on the membership committee with me um so um elliot if you're talking about the mistakes that they make with their online platform um so if they're making mistakes and in like their camera is down here or looking up their nose or something like that i will gently discuss that with them that's one of the benefits actually of doing that pre-mediation meeting with people because you most people set up their computer to do video conferences the same way every time so if they sign on for the online mediation pre mediation meeting it's going to be set up usually the same way or i just commend them in their pre-mediation meeting on how well they're set up i can see that you you know obviously are a pro at virtual meetings your camera's in a great position and i can see you well and very clearly um that positive reinforcement usually means that when they come back for the mediation session they're already set up but i will sometimes say you know it's hard for me to see your face and 55 percent of our communication is our facial expression so if you were able to move your camera to maybe a little bit higher or a little bit closer to the middle um that would be helpful anna do you help people when they're having issues and you know what my dog was barking out of control so i was muted myself so i missed the question it was do when people are making mistakes and i'm guessing oh what do you do when someone is being inappropriate god we get people being inappropriate in mediations all the time um like what do you do when someone's inappropriate anna i don't know you know i mean i always say there's a mute button for a reason as anna's just exploring right now i have muted people oh and you're muted right now or your audio is not working there we go yeah there you go so that is one of the things that when i i find that somebody well in some ways misbehaving i just try to um i just move them to a different breakout room and i talk to them in private uh i love breakup rooms and i love to move people around and i say hey what about if we um if i move you um to a different virtual room and we talk about what's happening and and i find out what is yeah what is going on um but i do it in a private and confidential way and that way people doesn't feel humiliated being calling in front of everyone that's what i would do yeah i did notice earlier someone had a question about how they can learn how to use breakout rooms i did want to say i have a video tutorial on my website for free so if you go to thelearntomediateonline.com website go to free videos and i think four four or five down is a tutorial on using the waiting room and using breakout rooms so that can be helpful because it's honest that's super helpful to be able to break people out into those rooms it's one of the greatest things ever to uh know how to create those beautiful breakout rooms and to manage people on in a mediation that is just the best thing and susan does a really good job explaining that in that video tutorial thank you that's really helpful i'm sure that many of our viewers will check that out uh thank you for sharing that we do have some more questions um we just have time to take a few so another question that we had is on the imbalance of power issue how do you diplomatically tell the lawyers to stand down sometimes or to pull back a bit um and that's and and um that's something that i do from the beginning and remember in the document that i sent before the mediation and when we are setting up everything the date and i always ask who is going to be participating from your side on on um and i remind them about the policies that i have in regard to look we have a self-represented party in the other side so please don't bring more than one or two people from your side because otherwise it's gonna be a huge power imbalance and that is gonna influence in the outcome of the mediation that's what i would do before that i don't want the people just showing up and at the mediation having 10 people from their side okay um another question that we have is so you've given this wonderful talk on online mediation and it's all been very positive would you say that there are any limitations to online mediation at all definitely there as as with anything um online mediation uh doesn't work if someone doesn't have an internet connection uh that can be a real issue uh we just bought a home that's you know a little further out into the country and several of the homes that we looked at weren't on the internet grid they did not get high-speed internet we couldn't buy those houses um so that is an issue for people um connectivity is an issue and the equipment that people need um especially in low income it's an access to justice issue for a lot of people i do find that almost everyone has a phone you can mediate from your phone you can be a participant even in a zoom mediation with breakout rooms from your phone um but it's not ideal when somebody's participating from a phone the thumbnails for the videos are obviously very small and as we talked about several times you know being able to see people's face hear them well is a is an integral part of communicating through that virtual medium so that can definitely be an issue um you know some of the other issues are the technical problems some people and i'm going to throw mediators under the bus um much to what anna said earlier is we do have a duty to be proficient in what we're doing and competent in what we're doing unfortunately many mediators are just jumping online and winging it that that'll be the phrase i'm going to use for it where they're not making sure that they're proficient in the skills that they need it's not just a matter of being able to have an online meeting you need to be able to do so much more than that and a good mediator will be proficient in more than just you know how to set up a meeting and how to speak to people that way i would just add that um i guess one of the biggest issues probably in an online setting is um that you don't have control over the parties um environment or the setting so if somebody in in is in a very crowded place or somebody has um is at home and has the dogs barking and the babies crying and that is always gonna be very distracting to everyone in the mediation um but i guess everything can be controlled and just can be um a fix so that's the i guess the the good thing and and if somebody shows up that it wasn't invited or there wasn't agreed to participate in the mediation well you just like i said i just stop the mediation ask them excuse me you ha i i didn't know that you were participating in this mediation how do you sign the mediation agreement how you sign my my documents go back i'm gonna send you the document right now read it review it agree to it and sign it and there we go i welcome you into the mediation so that that those were be my the issues that i see in the mediation okay thank you that's interesting um i think we just have time for one more question so it's do clients become more impatient um or more easily triggered are the words used on for online mediation or is it the other way around do they become more kind of impassioned than in face-to-face mediations that's a that's a great question and actually so dr deborah dupri who i mentioned earlier the psychologist um i've spoken to her on this and this is actually one of the major benefits of online mediation is it's actually a biological physiological effect that our brains do not release stress hormones at the same levels when we are faced with conflict but we're looking at each other on a screen the our brain will release much more cortisol and other stress hormones when you are in the same room or even in like the same suite of offices or conference rooms when there's conflict going on so people are actually much more emotionally tolerant of high emotion and i'm a divorce attorney so all i deal with is high emotion but they are much more capable of regulating their emotional content in the online platform which means that we're actually able to move through the process more quickly and they're more able to maintain a rational mindset have you found that anna with your i know you do some very emotional cases as well well i'm just thinking about uh sexual harassment cases i do a lot of those and in sexual harassment cases obviously um the person that is being harassed is always intimidated by the fact of getting together with the accuser on obviously in an online setting i always find it is so much easier for them to face their accuser and to face the pr the person that was harassing them that an in-person mediation and or in cases of um for example um i i remember now many cases where i i feel like an in-person mediation the lawyers the advocates they don't behave that bad in an online setting people is probably nicer because they they can insult you directly in your face in an online setting i have many lawyers that lose control in my in-person mediations and they ended up yelling at me and ended up and that having happened in an online setting because people is more subtle and they know they it is harder and it is more difficult so that's one of the benefits of mediation online mediation the people behave a little better and is not that intimidated by getting together of seeing somebody on the screen like they will be uh in person thank you that's interesting to know um i think that that's about all we have time for so once again i just like to thank you both for coming and giving up your time here today uh it's been a really insightful informative session i think it will help a lot of our viewers who are just starting to think about mediation and embarking on their career journey um so i'd just like to say to everyone watching uh please fill out the feedback form so that you can receive your e-certificate of participation um and please if you'd like to join our update groups then feel free to contact us after the session uh i'd like to let everyone have a lovely day now and i think we'll end things here so thanks again thank you thank you thank you and thank you everyone for joining us hopefully that was helpful feel free to reach out to us um and always on linkedin on i guess um susan is on linkedin on web her website everywhere you can reach out to us and you have any more questions feel free to let us know absolutely we're always here thank you thank you that's very generous okay you