Week 6 Mock Mediation

his week, you will be participating in a mock mediation session. Last week, you were assigned groups for this exercise. This process and results of this activity will also be the basis for your final Week 7 paper, the instructions for which you will receive next week. As a group, you are to decide on the time and date this week to meet via Zoom to complete this activity. Mediators and parties may find your fact patterns here. Every group member should download the document marked “ALL participants”. The other documents are marked for specific participants. Only the Plaintiff/Complainant should open the Plaintiff's Fact Pattern. Only the Respondent/Defendant should open the Defendant's Fact Pattern. This is important in order to protect the integrity of the mediation: ALL participants (Mediator, Parties, Observers): Dry Cleaner Role PlayDownload Dry Cleaner Role Play Complaining party ONLY: Dry Cleaner Role Play, PlaintiffDownload Dry Cleaner Role Play, Plaintiff Responding party ONLY: Dry Cleaner Role Play, DefendantDownload Dry Cleaner Role Play, Defendant Observers only: Mediation Role Play CritiqueLinks to an external site. Following the mediation, participants will engage in a “debrief”, during which you will discuss the case, what went well, what could be improved, and what you learned from the experience. This step is essential to your learning, and will inform the opinions you will include in the paper you will be assigned next week. There is no need to participate in pre-mediation data collection for this exercise. Begin your mock mediations with the mediator’s opening statement, and continue through agreement. If you are unable to resolve your dispute, continue until you have reached an unbreakable impasse. Assuming you are able to reach a settlement, the mediator should discuss and review all the essential elements that would be included in a formal agreement. For the purposes of our exercise there is no need to prepare the actual document, though you are free to do so. Resources: You are to reflect on everything you have learned so far. Please use the resources provided to-date, including everything from this week. I am the mediator in this group Dry Cleaner Role Play Background Information for All Parties and Mediator The Complainant brought seven shirts to the Respondent’s dry cleaning establishment for cleaning. The total dry cleaning bill was $28. After picking up the clothes and taking them home, the complaining party discovered that five of the shirts were heavily stained. Three months ago, the Complainant sued the Respondent in Small Claims Court for $666.50, representing the cost of the five damaged shirts ($600), plus the cost of the dry cleaning ($28) and court costs ($38.50). Attached to the complaint were photocopies of the receipts for two of the five shirts, showing they had been purchased at Brooks Brothers eight months prior for $75 a piece. The Respondent’s filed an answer to the complaint denying any damage was done to the Complainant’s shirts. The court’s mediation program in which this matter will be heard has a 90-minute time limit on mediation. The case will go to court in two days unless the case can be settled before then. This is the one and only opportunity to resolve the dispute before the court hearing.