Ann Sullivan

Like many of my peers who became lawyers in the 1980's  I was motivated by a desire to make a contribution to my community, i.e., "to do good." Following graduation from Northeastern University Law School I was involved in litigation for over twenty years. However my experience was that court litigation was so expensive that it wasn't a practicable option for people who neither had a high income nor a  very low income that made them eligible for subsidized legal services. I also saw that litigation is very stressful. It is an adversarial process that takes place in a public courtroom before an all powerful judge who is often intimidating to the lawyers and clients. I also found that litigation can be extremely frustrating; because it is based on each side taking "positions" trial lawyers develop facts that present  the "other party" to the Court in a most negative light and can use the rules of evidence to keep out facts more favorable to that party. Although the adversarial process is necessary and useful in a small percentage of cases, I felt that in many others parties to litigation ended up watching on while the judge and lawyers arrived at an outcome over which the parties felt they had very little control.

I became interested in mediation in the early 1990's after reading the seminal work Getting to Yes: Negotiating Without Giving In by Roger Fisher and William L. Ury. The  idea that negotiating was more successful when based on common interests rather than adversarial positions confirmed what I was seeing in my law practice. I began taking mediation trainings and have continued to take mediation and other alternative dispute resolution trainings (ADR) annually to keep up with the huge developments in ADR practice.

One such area of development is the realization by many in the professional mediation community that mediation should be client-centered and client-controlled. This is based on the reality that clients know better than lawyers, judges or mediators what their goals are for themselves and their families. In this approach, the mediator's job is to provide a private, confidential setting where the mediator can listen carefully to what clients want in a non-judgmental, empathetic manner and to use their mediator training and experience to help the clients acheive that goal.  Lawyer-mediators have  also  recognized that all clients do not need the same services. For example, some divorce mediation clients are able and willing to do much of the work preparatory to filing for a divorce themselves and they only want a lawyer or mediator to do certain discrete tasks. Other clients want a lawyer-  mediator who will do all the necessary work. Part of the mediator's job is to find out what services the clients want and need. (This is known as "un-bundling" of services and in Massachusetts is called Limited Assitance Representation.) 

Today I strongly believe that client-centered mediation gives a wide-range of individuals and couples -who are willing to make a good faith effort to reach agreement - the opportunity to resolve their disputes in a way that maximizes their control of the outcome and is less stressful, less time-consuming and less expensive than litigation. (Couples with children may want to note that studies show that there is usually less stress for children where parents are mediating their divorce than if they are in litigation.) 

I am happy to say that I no longer do courtroom litigation (It's a stressful, frustrating and, thus, an unhealthy place for litigators also!) I am certified in Limited Assistance Representation and I can assist individuals who are representing themselves with discrete aspects of  probate court case or eviction case including strategizing, writing letters, helping them prepare court documents etc.