With today’s Covid-19 virus concerns more people are taking classes online and working at home. I’ve been asked if mediation can be done .

The simple answer is yes. In fact, there is long history of conducting mediation remotely by various media from telephone to online.

Mediators have used conference call mediation for many years. Typically when the parties have work or parenting schedules and/or are located far apart. Of course, the mediator and the parties lose the nonverbal cues that face-to-face mediation presents, but some mediators find that not to be a barrier.

Closed-circuit television or online teleconferencing does permit parties to see one another. Closed-circuit televised mediation has a long history as well. It has been used in family mediation when one spouse feels threatened to be in the same room with the other. In these cases, one party was told to report to one location and the other elsewhere. Neither party were informed as to where each was located and the mediation proceeded via television.

And online mediation has a long history as well. I have been told that the first online session was conducted by a New Zealand mediator in the early days of the internet who resolved a dispute with parties living on different Pacific islands using just email.

The stimulus for online mediation (now known as Online Dispute Resolution or ODR) was the development of e-commerce. In 1995, eBay was launched and in 1999 sponsored a pilot program to mediate disputes between buyers and sellers online. With the success of the pilot, eBay initially contracted with an internet startup, Square Trade, to handle the program. The complaining party used email to explain the issue and suggest possible solutions. The defending party countered via email. If no agreement was reached, a mediator would intervene. By 2010, eBay said it handled over 60 million disputes online with an 80% settlement rate.

Today there are companies that provide online dispute resolution. One, Cybersettle, claimed to have settled $1.9 billion in medical billing and insurance claims. Online dispute resolution is now even being used in court cases and some jurisdictions are experimenting with online programs that permit disputants to deal with their issues solely online, avoiding having to appear in court.

So the answer is a resounding, “yes, you can mediate from home.”

(Actually Covid-19 has little to do with it as online dispute resolution will be how most mediations are resolved for various kinds of disputes in the future.)

A term that is becoming more recognized is “collaborative divorce.” I know that I’m being asked about it more and more lately. Usually the follow-up question is does collaborative divorce involve mediation.

Collaborative divorce is an alternative to traditional formal divorce litigation and an option for couples who are both ready to end their marriage and willing to work together to negotiate issues.

Before choosing collaborative divorce when meeting with a mediator, the parties must understand that the mediator does not provide legal advice, so each party should still communicate with their attorney. Nor can the mediator provide financial advice, so each may also want to seek out their own adviser or accountant for any money related issues. And, if children are involved, each party may seek out assistance from a child specialist or a co-parenting coordinator.

Then, with the help of a mediator, a couple can work together and try to resolve issues and their future relationship.

The advantages to the couple are privacy, confidentiality, as well as time and cost savings. More importantly for couples who have no desire to engage in “warfare,” collaborative divorce allows them to negotiate their separation and divorce in an environment that is mutually respectful of the relationship they once valued and to negotiate how they will relate to one another in the future.

One mediation I conducted provides a typical example of a collaborative divorce for a couple with no children. Each party had consulted with attorneys and agreed to meet to mediate issues before returning to their attorneys who would prepare the necessary legal documents. In a three-hour mediation, they began by expressing to each other the disappointment and hurt that their relationship was ending. Then continued by agreeing they had no desire to work to continue their marriage. At that point they divided assets and liabilities and necessary details to put that division into place. Then, after successfully dealing with those issues, they were both ready and willing to express to one another respect and goodwill toward one another.

They entered the mediation as adversaries; they left the mediation as people who collaborated to achieve the best outcome for each.