Can I have my attorney with me during Mediation?

The short answer is no, we do not allow attorneys to participate in our mediation sessions.

There are several reasons for this.

First of all, mediation is an alternative to litigation, and as such, attorneys have no place in the proceedings.

Second, many attorneys have a tendency, to put it bluntly, to be adversarial and to consider themselves experts despite being out of their element. They generally serve only to complicate the proceedings and to make the disputants more uncomfortable and unwilling to negotiate, by insisting on acting as if the proceedings were the same as those occurring under the auspices of a coercive system of litigation. They tend to create an adversarial atmosphere, and thus destroy the proceedings out of a desire to either take the dispute to court, or to settle the matter by adversarial negotiations amongst themselves.

Third, the presence of an attorney tends to be a sign of unwillingness to negotiate in good faith. Whether by intent or not, coming to mediation with an attorney sends the message that if the disputant doesn't "win it all," that they will ignore the mediation and resort to coercive methods. The mediation process depends upon the demonstrated willingness of the disputants to negotiate a mutually agreeable solution in good faith.

Fourth, attorneys are officers of the court, first and above all. With the exception of a few pro-Liberty lawyers, their allegiance is not given to their client, or to truth or justice, but rather to the government court and the coercive and adversarial litigation system. As the confidentiality of discussions during a mediation session is guaranteed by The Ancap Agency, we cannot allow agents of the court who will not abide by an agreement maintaining said confidentiality to be present.

Again, mediation has very little in common with court proceedings.  It has much more in common with couseling sessions, than with any conventional form of dispute resolution.  Whereas rules of evidence and strict procedure are, to be fair, essential in court proceedings, they have little or no validity in mediation.  By necessity, courts and arbitrators must disregard emotional issues, ancilliary issues, etc.  They must consider only the facts directly pertinent to the case, and the law as established by the government which applies in the particular case.  Thus, most lawyers are completely unprepared for the reality of a mediation session, and would (granted, with the best of intentions) strenuously object to the proceedings and encourage their client to resort to the standard court proceedings instead.