LawsonGroupMediation

Over the last two decades, a new profession has emerged and become fairly widespread in the court systems: that of the mediator.  The standards for professional mediation has become quite varied with some states requiring a doctor’s degree in areas such as law or psychology.  Other states, however, have very low standards, with no educational requirements, but certification still being required.

In addition, the training for mediators has also varied tremendously.  While in some states, the training has been standardized with minimum standards, other states have virtually no control over the quality of training for certification.

Is an advanced degree and rigid standards of training required really necessary?  For community mediation, mediation involving parent-child, small claims courts, and many other conflict situations, rigid standards of education and training are not necessary.  However, for mediation requiring substantial legal issues, and for general civil mediation requiring technical expertise, both the education and standards of training are of paramount importance.

Short sale mediation is far more than merely sending in documents to the lender and keeping in communication with the lenders until a decision is reached.  If that was all that was required, then anyone can do that effectively.  Indeed, now there are “loss mitigators” and “negotiators” who used to work for lenders now providing 3rd party processing of short sales.  However, those loss mitigators and negotiators are not professionals nor do they have the knowledge of an experience short sale mediator.  Those individuals are relatively low paid processing clerks.  A good corollary would be my legal secretary practicing law.  Just because the secretary handles and processes my legal documents all day long, and knows the answers to a lot of questions, does not qualify that secretary to practice law.  The same is true for former loss mitigators and negotiators.

So, what is mediation?  Mediation is process in which the mediator, utilizing specific methodology and skills, resolves a dispute between the parties.  It is not bringing people together to compromise.  In fact, if there is compromise, there is often a lose-lose result, or a win-lose result.  Mediation, on the other hand, uses specific procedures to protect each party’s interests and bring about a win-win for each party: lender, buyer, seller, and the agents.  Most people cannot imagine the skills that are required, or the methodology used to bring about that result.

As a mediator, we serve as neutrals.  I am not representing any of the parties, but protecting the interests and confidences of each party.  As such, we have a different relationship with the lender.  It is non-adversarial.  It is unique and we are not seen as adversaries.  Remember, the servicing lender is not usually the lender who owns the mortgage note, and it the SMI whose interests we are protecting, along with the agents, buyers and sellers.

How is it different from negotiating?  A negotiator necessarily represents one side of the issue, no matter how nice he or she may be to the other parties, the negotiator is an adversary.  The relationship is different, and that difference is played out behind the scenes greater than most people realize.  Negotiating uses different skillsets.  As a lawyer, I was also a trained negotiator and those skills were refined as much as possible.  However, as a mediator, I use different skills and methods.

From the perspective of most people, negotiating and mediating seem to be simple and it is difficult to understand that there could be highly refined methods, techniques and skills.  However, our federal government spent millions of research dollars in the form of grants to the Harvard Negotiation Project to study mediation and negotiation and to come up with effective methods and techniques.  The result of those studies were first demonstrated when the U.S. State Department mediated the Israeli-Egyptian war.  Since then, professional mediation has been instituted into most federal agencies and the U.S. Postal Service.  The standards are high for certification and demonstrated skills are required.

In short sale mediation, our firm requires mediators to have advanced education or demonstrated specific technical knowledge and experience in issues being mediated.  They are required to demonstrate their abilities in the methodology and techniques used.

How are mediation methods utilized in short sales?  Remembering that the Secondary Market Investor owns the note, but in most situations we are not permitted to contact them directly, and also that MI companies who have paid a claim also have the right to review a short sale proposal, we do not have the ability to communicate with those entities directly.  So, we have to communicate in nonverbal means through the servicing lender.    So, we have developed strategies and techniques to enable the SMI and MI carrier to determine that we are protecting their interests and that the short sale should be approved if it meets their minimum threshold requirements.  The techniques help those entities to see clearly the issues and they address those entities’ needs.

We do provide a service that is unique and effective.  Another benefit of using mediation is the agent can focus on getting listings and then turn it over to us.  That benefit is leveraging resources.  Leveraging is one of the keys to growing a business and making it successful.

A good analogy is when a client comes to my law office and requests that I tell him how to represent himself in traffic court.  Some people are very good at this, and often the result may often be the same as if they had a lawyer.  However, besides the ethical issues, I know that with my unique education, training, and experience, I cannot teach the client to duplicate the relationship that an attorney has with the court, the particular knowledge of what to do when things go wrong, or the skills to overcome those issues.  The same with mediating short sales.  I have provided everything I can in our two publications to help stop the massive amount of errors typically made by agents, but mediation can provide a professional extra to the process that can often make the difference.

At TheLawsonGroup, we have three levels of service for agents:

First, we provide training in the form of two publications.  The publications provide a practical guide to handling short sales, including the avoidance of the errors typically made, the techniques of negotiating, the process of conducting a legal and market analysis, drafting a professional proposal, and the disclosures and forms to protect you from potential liability.

Second, we provide coaching.  We can guide you on a personal level from beginning to end, and help you to solve some of the problems and issues you face.  We can also guide you to build your business to the next level for greater income and prosperity.

Third, we provide mediation services to leverage your business.  You list, we mediate.  Not only does it allow you to do what you do best and let us deal with the banks which is what we do best, but as previously stated, it is a different relationship and we believe that we add a substantial professional quality.

See our website at www.LawsonGroupMediation.com for a full descriptions of all of our services.