- General Purposes of Opening Statements
- Establish roles including mediator’s role as manager of the process
- Develop constructive relationship between mediator and participants
- Develop confidence in the mediator
- Establish behavioral expectations (“ground rules”)
- Determine and foster commitment to mediate cooperatively
- Set initial agenda
- Comply with ethical codes
- Issues Often Covered in Opening Statements
- Alert participants how long opening statement may take
- Introductions, possibly including mediator’s qualifications
- Attendance, e.g.,
- check on use of first / last names
- presence of advisors, observers
- photos of children not attending
- whether necessary participants are missing
- negotiators present have “sufficient” authority
- Purpose(s) of mediation and mediator’s role
- Impartiality / neutrality of mediator
- Procedures, e.g., who speaks first Right to counsel / Roles of principals and attorneys
- Principals’ control over outcome – voluntariness in reaching agreement
- Confidentiality
- Private meetings (“caucuses”) and privacy of information provided in these meetings; time may not be equal etc.
- Time expectations for session and entire process
- Other ground rules / guidelines, e.g., one person speaks at a time, respect, name-calling, suggestion to take notes
- Housekeeping, eg, bathrooms, breaks, (no) smoking
- Opportunity for participants to ask questions
- Readiness / commitment of participants to proceed
© John Lande 1996-2000. Permission to copy granted if copyright notice is retained for credit.