How Not to Suck at Mediation: A Guide For Lawyers

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John Leo Wagner has 29 years' experience in conducting ADR processes. In 1997, he left the Federal bench to become the Director of the Irell & Manella ADR Center, where he engaged in a full-time practice as a neutral. He previously served for 12 years as a U.S. Magistrate Judge in the Northern District of Oklahoma. He was appointed to this position at age 31, after trying many substantial cases to verdict as litigation partner with Kornfeld & Franklin. While on the Federal bench, he founded and administered a court-annexed mediation program and served as an ADR neutral, in addition to maintaining a full civil caseload. Judge Wagner has successfully conducted thousands of mediations and arbitrations. He is respected and requested for his extensive experience and skill in resolving multi-party, and extremely complex issues in cases involving intellectual property, construction defect, environmental and mass torts, as well as securities and consumer class actions. He has also earned a reputation for handling matters with a high emotional content including employment, civil rights, partnership dissolution plus all types of business, insurance and personal injury disputes. One client commented: "Judge Wagner offers a unique combination of federal bench and private practice experience. With this experience and his calm and even-handed disposition he earned everyone's respect." Both plaintiff and defense concur Judge Wagner is knowledgeable, intelligent, creative, perceptive and works relentlessly to resolve disputes. John is a long time Distinguished Fellow with the International Academy of Mediators, and its former President.

Michael D. Young, a former employment, intellectual property and business litigator and mediator with the national firm Alston & Bird, has been mediating cases since 1989. Building off of his extensive litigation experience, and his training through the nationally acclaimed Straus Institute of Dispute Resolution at the Pepperdine Law School, Mr. Young assists parties resolve contentious and complex civil disputes, often in creative and innovative ways that the parties themselves had not previously considered. Mr. Young has extensive experience both litigating and mediating all varieties of employment, intellectual property, and business disputes, including class actions and single-plaintiff matters. On the employment side, these have included wrongful termination, harassment, discrimination, disability, public policy, wage and hour, and misclassification disputes, among others. On the IP side, Mr. Young had handled disputes over trade secrets, trademarks, copyrights, patents, and restrictive covenants. In addition, in his 25-plus year legal career, Mr. Young has mediated, litigated, and tried hundreds of disputes involving unfair competition, antitrust, and environmental issues (including CERCLA and RCRA cases), among other complex business disputes. Attorneys have praised Mr. Young's creativity and doggedness. Said one attorney following a difficult employment mediation: "Your ideas were very creative, and your no-nonsense approach was exactly right for this case. I've been in over 200 mediations from all perspectives, but the job you did this week really stands out." Commented another: "Mike was very effective in building credibility with both plaintiffs and the defense in an emotionally charged case involving several plaintiffs. He was able to get to the heart of the issues and put the parties on a path to resolution while giving everyone an opportunity to be heard. His tireless follow-up and accessibility was crucial to the resolution of the case." Said a third: "I have used mediators for over three decades, and Mike came up with approaches, ideas, and solutions that were new to me. That mediation was a success because Mike Young refused to let it fail." Mike is similarly a long time Distinguished Fellow with the International Academy of Mediators and former President, and was an adjunct professor at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law for nearly a decade, and at the Straus Institute of Dispute Resolution at the Pepperdine Law School, teaching mediation and ADR.