{"id":869,"date":"2021-08-25T10:37:57","date_gmt":"2021-08-25T14:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/?p=869"},"modified":"2021-08-25T10:37:57","modified_gmt":"2021-08-25T14:37:57","slug":"minimizing-mediators-own-liability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/2021\/08\/minimizing-mediators-own-liability\/","title":{"rendered":"Minimizing Mediator&#8217;s Own Liability"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Should mediators include in their retention agreements a waiver of liability? This would be a clause along the lines of, &#8220;The mediator cannot be held liable for any act or omission in connection with this mediation.&#8221; A thoughtful <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediate.com\/articles\/quatnam-waiver-liability.cfm\">article by Bill Quatnam<\/a> just posted on Mediate. com suggests mediators should think carefully about this. The article, entitled, &#8220;Mediator Ethics: Should You Ask for a Waiver of Liability?&#8221;, explores the law in several states regarding mediator immunity (it varies), questioning both the enforceability of such clauses as well as whether they&#8217;re ethical.<\/p>\n<p>I used to have such a clause in my retention agreement&#8211;borrowed from someone, somewhere; it seemed like a good idea at the time. Then I read Jeff Kichhaven&#8217;s article in IRMI,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.irmi.com\/expert-commentary?taxonomy=topics&amp;propertyName=category&amp;taxon=%2fclaims-caselaw-and-legal-topics%2fmediation\"> &#8220;Nix Your Mediator&#8217;s Prospective Waiver of Liability,&#8221;<\/a> and was persuaded that this is not good practice for a mediator. Kichhaven suggests that these clauses announce to the world that attorney-mediators &#8220;have voluntarily lowered their own ethical standards when they change hats from law practice to mediation practice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Michigan does not provide immunity for mediators. It&#8217;s unclear whether such a clause would be enforceable in Michigan. The ideal course is for mediators to mediate well so that unhappy parties don&#8217;t turn on their mediators, rather than relying on a liability waiver or legal immunity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Should mediators include in their retention agreements a waiver of liability? This would be a clause along the lines of, &#8220;The mediator cannot be held liable for any act or omission in connection with this mediation.&#8221; A thoughtful article by Bill Quatnam just posted on Mediate. com suggests mediators should think carefully about this. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mediation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":870,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869\/revisions\/870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abfifer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}