THE CASE FOR MEDIATION

By Kay Henden, Esq.^*

I. INTRODUCTION

In many California counties, pretrial mediation is an accepted part of the litigation process. Before trial, a case is assigned to mediation by the trial judge, a mediator is selected either from a court panel or as stipulated by the parties, and the discovery calendar is determined with mediation in mind.

This is not the case in many jurisdictions, however, and in those counties the attorney in the contested case is faced with the difficult prospect of convincing both his client and opposing counsel of the advisability of mediation.