Mediators, Attorneys & Therapists

Though complementary, the roles of mediator, attorney, and therapist are quite distinct. Depending on your circumstances, you might want to engage one, two, or all three of these professionals for their very specific areas of expertise.

Mediators

Mediators are experts in conflict resolution. Their job is to help both parties resolve the problem that they face — for example, how to divide assets in a marital dissolution or how to agree on coparenting responsibilities for their children — in a way that is fair and that addresses both parties’ interests. Mediators give the parties every opportunity to reach a settlement, but the parties themselves decide what kind of settlement, if any, they want to reach.

Our skilled mediators succeed by creating an environment that encourages an open and constructive exchange. They guide the exchange towards a settlement by asking questions, identifying issues, exploring underlying interests, balancing power, and helping the parties break through impasse. You can further explore how we work with conflict by visiting causes of conflict.

New Resolution is an exclusive provider of mediation services. We don’t double as attorneys or therapists. Our mediators are specialists. We’re professionally trained in mediation, and we have graduate degrees in related disciplines such as conflict studies, international relations, and psychology.

Attorneys

Attorneys are experts in law and litigation. Traditionally, their job has been to represent their clients in contesting a dispute through litigation. An attorney would be retained by one client to bring a lawsuit against the other party. The other party, meanwhile, responds by retaining an attorney of his/her own. The two attorneys, acting for their respective clients, each then try to prevail in court — or the attorneys might, if they thought it expedient, reach a settlement with their counterpart just before the trial date.

Parties in divorce, family, and relational disputes increasingly favor mediation over litigation. Some attorneys resist this trend because it threatens their traditional business of representing clients in litigation. Many attorneys, however, recognize the benefits of mediation. They are happy to consult with their clients on an hourly basis for an hourly fee. And they won't demand that you pay them thousands of dollars in advance as a so-called retainer to represent you in litigation.

Consultant attorneys are complementary to the mediation process. They add great value to parties in mediation. For example, they can discuss your legal rights, develop proposals and counters to offers by the other party, and suggest best-case and worst-case outcomes if the dispute were contested in court. Consultant attorneys can also review a mediated settlement before the parties make it legally binding. They can even accompany the parties to mediation sessions.

Therapists

Therapists, like mediators, are experts in conflict resolution, but the professions of psychotherapy and mediation differ in important ways. Therapists address internal conflicts. Mostly working with individuals, they promote personal development by helping their clients with emotional issues such as self-esteem, loss, abuse, and trauma. Psychotherapists also use clinical interventions such as behavior therapies to treat psychological disorders.

Mediators, in contrast, address conflicts between parties. To this end, divorce, family, and relational mediation is a process of disentanglement rather than reconciliation. If parties decide during, say, divorce mediation that they want to rebuild their marriage, the mediator can refer them to a marriage and family therapist or couples counselor. Mediators, even when trained as counselors or therapists, don’t act as such while conducting mediation.

Therapists and counselors try to promote deep change in their clients. Fulfilling this goal often entails an extensive review of a client’s life history. The focus of mediation, however, is more future oriented. The mediator will guide the convers-ation towards past issues only to the extent that their consideration promotes a more durable settlement.