Publication Date
Fall 2020
Abstract
Mediation is continuing to emerge as a highly adaptable and effective method for resolving legal conflicts in the United States. Though unique in the myriad benefits it affords participants, mediation has been critiqued by practitioners and legal realist theoreticians, in part for its uncompromising requirement of neutrality in the mediator. Many mediators pursue neutrality because they believe it is the only measure of the fairness of a mediator or mediation. In the context of multidimensional race- and sex-based inequalities in society, however, neutrality is an impossible ideal and notions of “fairness” are complex. This Note inquires whether and how mediators ought to acknowledge bias and attempt to facilitate fair mediations.
Erratum
This article was corrected in January 2021 to accurately reflect the author's affiliation with New Mexico Legal Aid.
Recommended Citation
Jessica Halperin,
Ethical Mediation in an Unjust World: Claiming Bias and Negotiating Fairness,
23
CUNY L. Rev.
320
(2020).
Available at:
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/clr/vol23/iss2/6