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My last three Simple Procedure mediations did not settle. Which doesn’t feel great. I like to pretend, as mediators often do, that I don’t put much stock in settlement rates, but my emotional brain knows that isn’t true. If life were a video game, my self-esteem health bar would be flashing violently, begging for an extra life before we hit the Game Over screen.

Interestingly, while I couldn’t avoid the Game Over screen in these mediations, each of them did continue to the next level. All three seemingly unresolved conflicts came back for another bite of the apple, with claimants and respondents reaching out again to see if we could move things forward. I’m finding this kind of post-mediation negotiation more common in my practice, and I haven’t yet decided whether that says something about the clients, my practice, or, more likely, both.

I’m someone who values mediation because it brings people together at times when they are often isolated from one another. That has always made me slightly uncomfortable with separating parties into breakout rooms to negotiate on their behalf. However, I’ve come to see the value in this for some parties, particularly where preserving the relationship is not the main goal, and I’ve built it into my practice, especially online. That said, it will come as no surprise that extended shuttle mediation, particularly after a joint session, is not something I’m naturally drawn to, even if I’m willing to do it at the parties’ request. It does, if I’m honest, give my self-esteem meter a small boost to feel useful and go above and beyond.

But it is above and beyond…isn’t it? In each case, two of which eventually settled, I ended up spending significantly more time than I had intended. Tens of hours in total, with no additional financial remuneration. That doesn’t bother me in itself. I chose to do it. I’m not driven by money. But I do remember a mentor once saying, “If you are working harder than the parties, something has gone wrong.”

As I shuttled offers, wants, needs, and positions back and forth over days, and in one case weeks, I did find myself thinking, perhaps a little cynically: why am I doing this? Am I working harder than the parties themselves? Do I want a settlement more than they do?

Reflecting honestly, in one of those cases, the answer was yes. I was working harder than the parties, and I likely wanted a settlement more than they did. I could see a glimmer of hope that perhaps they could not, and I was putting real effort into keeping that glimmer alive. Although it was the parties who had asked to continue after the joint session, they probably already knew they were too far apart. I suspect I knew it too. But at that point, I was the one holding the hope, hope that had already left them. So I said this out loud to both parties, and they agreed. We were done. Back to court it went.

The other two cases were different. Yes, I was working hard, but so were the parties. They were struggling, but they were trying. So, we kept going. Emails pinged back and forth, I got on the phone with the respondent then I called the claimant, then the respondent phoned me, then I phoned the claimant (you get the idea). Gradually, and I do mean gradually, they moved closer together as I continued to shuttle information back and forth, until we reached that familiar zone of potential agreement where something can shift. And it did. Not through any miracle, but through three people working hard together to make it happen.

And I concluded it was worth it. Worth the time. Not for financial gain, as there was none beyond the initial session. Not for my self-esteem, which still insists it doesn’t care about settlement rates. But for the parties in those two cases who were able to get there. They just needed more time, and someone to hold a bit of hope that they could.

Is it a mistake to go above and beyond in mediation and hold onto hope beyond the initial session? Maybe. But I’m not sure I’ve learned that lesson just yet.