When a San Diego family started a telephone answering service, its members thought it would help to pool their resources. But a drop in business proved how quickly family ties could disintegrate into a bitter family feud. A brother on the East Coast, who put up capital for the venture, sued his sister when she stopped making payments to him. She was upset because she was running the business and viewed him as a partner, not a lender.

    The breakup of the family, as well as the business, was averted when the San Diego Mediation Center agreed to step in, helping the disputants get to the bottom of their frustrations so they could settle their case. The brother agreed to treat his sister as a business partner, and the sister promised to abide by a reasonable plan to repay her brother.
    The answering service is one of dozens of businesses that resolve disputes through the mediation center, where the goal is to help people find solutions outside the adversarial arena of the courtroom.
    With its roots in the neighborhood justice movement of the 1970s, mediation has evolved into a process for solving grievances of all types. Trained mediators tackle everything from sour business deals and consumer complaints to divorce and parent-teen conflicts.
    Last year, the center conducted about a thousand mediations. Between 75 percent and 85 percent of the cases were resolved, saving the court system at least $3.1 million and sparing complainants the financial and emotional cost of a legal battle.
    Despite the phenomenal track record, Liz O'Brien, the center's president, sees a much bigger role in the future for the mediation movement — if people understand the advantages.

    It’s Not Arbitration
    Unlike arbitration, in which a third party hears both sides of the dispute and comes up with a solution, mediation relies on the people involved in the dispute to work out their differences. With help from a neutral mediator, the parties take control, O'Brien says, and more often than not, the process helps them reach agreement. Compliance rates for mediated agreements are high — 84 percent in 1996-97 — the center's annual statistics show.
    "What do you have to lose?" O'Brien asks. "If it doesn’t work, you still have all the other options available to you."
    Moreover, mediation offers a relatively inexpensive process far more flexible and creative than the courts, where civil lawsuits are resolved with money, she says.
    Mediation can resolve money issues, she adds, but it also can address the non-monetary grievances, the psychological stumbling blocks that arouse hostility and often keep people at odds. "Ninety-five percent of disputes involve something in addition to money," she says. "There is almost always something else — insult, injury, a feeling that a reputation has been damaged, hearsay, assumptions. The skill of the mediator is to clarify what the issues really are and develop options to resolve the dispute."
    Mediation holds promise for large and small businesses, she says, particularly in an era when workplace violence is increasingly commonplace. The 82 percent of businesses with 10 or fewer employees can ill afford "gigantic legal expenses," she adds. For these small businesses, affordable and fast conflict resolution helps their bottom line.
    Companies often are slow to embrace the mediation process to resolve internal disputes. O'Brien blames that partly on a corporate culture of denial, in which supervisors feel that workplace turmoil reflects badly on them. As a result, many supervisors are neither prepared to deal with conflict nor willing to seek outside help when it occurs. In her view, they are refusing to act realistically on what should be a top priority: managing conflicts. "As a supervisor, the only thing you can be sure of is that you will have conflict," she says.

Gradually the word is getting out. Of the business disputes brought to the mediation center, employment conflicts represent the fastest-growing category, O'Brien says. Most business disputes still arise between different companies. For instance, mediators recently resolved a case in which two businesses on the same street annoyed each other with their competing signs.     The center also helps companies solve contract and subcontract conflicts. In one recent case, for instance, the attorney for a large electronics firm involved in a contract dispute says he was able to reach a settlement through the services of the mediation center.     "They offer excellent mediation services at a good value," says lawyer Fred Plevin of Gray Cary Ware and Friedenrich.     Plevin says the center is able to schedule mediation sessions more quickly than the better-known organizations using retired judges. The center, he says, offers reasonable rates, skilled mediators and flexible scheduling that even will allow parties to start a lengthy mediating session at 5:30 or 6 p.m. Although some of his clients may still prefer a retired judge as a mediator, Plevin likes the way the center trains volunteer mediators from all walks of life and tries to match them to appropriate cases.

Attorney Fred Plevin of Gray Cary Ware and Friedenrich compliments services of the San Diego Mediation Center.

    Consumer complaints also arrive at the center. For instance, mediation successfully settled a $10,000 lawsuit filed against a grocery store by one of its regular customers, a woman who had slipped and injured her back while shopping. The store, unwilling to admit any liability, had not bothered to check on her condition after the incident, infuriating the customer and setting the stage for litigation. The mediation session gave all the parties a chance to sit around a table together and clearly state their positions. The path was cleared for resolution.

Nora Jaeschke of N.N. Jaeschke Inc., a management company that frequently uses mediation services.

For businesses that typically handle large numbers of disputes, mediation is particularly useful.     "I view it as the answer to getting people together," says Nora Jaeschke of N.N. Jaeschke Inc., a management company for community associations. "Most people are anxious to solve their problems, but there is just a lack of communication." Jaeschke, a frequent user of the Mediation Center's services, says mediation can resolve disputes about 90 percent of the time. For those that remain unsettled, she says, the parties at least come away with a better understanding of each other’s positions.     O'Brien talks enthusiastically about the center's expanding role in the community, the energy of its mediators and the satisfaction of bringing people together to solve their problems. The 51-year-old mother of a grown son and daughter says she finds nothing intimidating about being surrounded by disputes, adding that "it’s just a piece of life."     "I’ve always been a problem solver," she says. "I’m in this because I welcome conflict. I think it can propel us to a different place."

    The Mission Begins
    The daughter of a father who owned a Pittsburgh car dealership and a mother who taught school, O'Brien was the youngest of four children. She came to San Diego in 1985, and shortly thereafter was was hired to direct the Golden Hill Mediation Center and a neighborhood center in Mira Mesa on a six-month contract.
    The local mediation concept had begun as a pilot project of the University of San Diego Law Center, in an effort to find different ways to resolve conflicts that were overburdening the justice system. With the help of a start-up grant from the Weingart Foundation, the fledgling Golden Hill center opened its doors in 1983 in a blue frame house on 22nd Street. Disputes — mostly about barking dogs, loud music and other neighborhood issues — were handled by a few mediators. At the time, the center had a paid staff of one. Two years later, the Mira Mesa center was opened. Meanwhile, two Superior Court judges, Anthony Joseph and Robert O'Neill, sat on the board of the neighborhood center and helped promote the mediation idea beyond neighborhood boundaries.
    In 1990, the neighborhood centers were consolidated into an independent nonprofit corporation, the San Diego Mediation Center. It was sponsored by the San Diego County Bar Association. Currently the center has 20 paid employees, about 200 mediators and a 26-member board of directors. It has a budget of more than $1 million and 21 programs. Under private and public contracts, the center offers services as diverse as conducting parking citation hearings and arbitrating the city of San Diego’s Housing Commission disputes. The center also sponsors the annual Peacemaker Awards, honoring recipients for creative approaches to conflict resolution in the community during the previous year.

    What It Costs
    Fees start at $450 per mediation session. Grant money subsidizes the fees in some categories of community disputes, and in those cases, the complaining parties only have to pay a $10 administrative fee.
    Three out of every four business disputes are settled in a single session. The rest usually take two. In a divorce case, there are other things to consider, such as property, pension plans, other assets and children. "Divorce (mediation) generally goes four to five sessions and sometimes longer," says O'Brien. "The issues generally run a little deeper in those kinds of cases."
    Mediation requests come to the center in various ways. Some cases are referred by Municipal and Superior Court judges, with parties in a lawsuit ordered to attempt mediation before going further in court. Others are small claims disputes, in which mediators on-site at the court help complainants settle disputes before going to the judge. Still others are disputes in which one of the complainants voluntarily approaches the mediation center for help. In those cases, O'Brien, or a member of the the center's staff, calls the other party in an attempt to convince them to come to the mediation table.
    One of the center's key activities is training more mediators — volunteers from 56 different professions, from teachers and engineers to homemakers. The center provides extensive training and workshops on mediation, not only for its own volunteers but for businesses, government agencies and members of the public. There are introductory courses on the basic how-to's of mediating as well as advanced training for tackling complex disputes.

    Paraphrasing Mick Jagger
    Applying those skills, mediators seat the disputing parties, some with lawyers beside them, at a round table. Face to face, they explore their differences for three or four hours. For many, says O'Brien, it is the first opportunity for the complainants to talk directly to one another. The mediator explores the roots of the conflict, then guides them as both sides search for a mutually acceptable resolution.
    Paraphrasing Mick Jagger, O'Brien says, "It doesn’t always get them what they want, but you should come away with what you need."