Technology in the Mediation Room: Innovation from Colorado Divorce Mediators
July 20, 2006 · Print This Article
Lawrence King of Colorado’s Divorce Resolutions was kind enough to let me know of a new way his firm is using technology in the mediation room.
In Colorado Divorce Mediators Innovate Family Mediation with Large Television Monitors, Divorce Resolutions describes how they’ve replaced flipcharts with large, flat-panel LCD monitors connected to laptops via the office’s wireless network.
They use them much as you would a flipchart, but with obviously greater professionalism, the ability to use a variety of software tools to manage and present information, and with no need to copy material from paper to computer later! Feedback from clients sounds pretty darn clear:
After only several months of working with the large flat panel Dell™ television monitor displays, the power of their visuals in mediation is clear. Our clients consistently rave about their use. They tell us that the television monitor displays greatly facilitate their considering options and finding mutually-satisfying divorce solutions in their work with us in mediation. As mediators, we look back and wonder how we earlier practiced our craft without these tools!
This is innovative stuff and it sounds like it’s been a worthwhile investment for the firm. Thanks for leading the way, Lawrence!
Do you have questions for Lawrence? Leave a comment below and I’ll pass them along. Do you know of other innovative ways mediators are using technology in the mediation room? Please, let me know!
Dear Tammy,
Thanx for this post. That’s exactly what I’m looking for. Do you know what kind of special software they use? I thougth about using a TabletPC with handwriting recognition but I’m not sure how to visualise different sheets.
Guten Tag, Christoph. Ich frage (I’ll ask) Lawrence!
Guten Morgen, Christoph.
Originally, we conceptualized that we would replace our ordinary laptops with TabletPC’s. We haven’t simply because we thought it prudent to await the release of (and maybe the first update to) Windows® Vista. As time has passed, we’re not sure we need tablets, although we may wish to try them — to completely eliminate flipcharts. (I still use flipcharts occasionally; my partner Chris frankly does not.)
We primarily use Excel® to craft with our clients an analysis of their families’ marital and separate property, and West-Thomson’s FinPlan®’s DivorcePlanner® to help our clients understand their respective households’ after tax cashflow following divorce given their approach to child support and spousal support. (See Keeping It Real: Mediation’s Power in Spousal Alimony Cases about using such software in family mediation.)
But we often used these tools before. The difference is we now work collaboratively onscreen in real-time directly with our clients and allow them to immediately see visually the impact of differing choices or scenarios in allocating property, debts and income.
We do now use a set of five or six Powerpoint® slides for certain education pieces of our work with clients: something we didn’t do before.
As I have always said, the large screen displays technology won’t transform a poor mediator into an intuitive, artful listener and creative partner; indeed, it might make things worse. But, it powerfully assists the family and divorce mediation process in ways we never expected, by bringing our clients more immediately into the problemsolving and option generation process. And used expertly, it is reasonably seamless and does not erode the intimacy of the mediation process.
Feel free to review the materials from our workshop Turbocharging Your Family Mediation Process (which we just presented at the midyear national conference of the Family Section of the Association for Conflict Resolution in Cape Cod). These include downloadable screenshots and family mediation practice tools and forms.
Larry