Michael Leb brings executive experience to the mediation table

Michael H. Leb wanted plenty of experience before he started calling himself a mediator.

When Leb decided around 2008 to make mediation his full-time practice, he joined the Los Angeles County Superior Court's volunteer mediation panel with a goal: mediate 100 cases before holding himself out professionally as a neutral.

"I wanted to mediate 100 cases before holding myself out to the world as a mediator," Leb recalled.

When that program ended, he volunteered for the U.S. District Court's mediation panel and later returned to Los Angeles Superior Court when its Mediation Volunteer Panel was established. Volunteering, he said, is one way to give back to a legal system central to his 41-year career.

Leb, of Leb Dispute Resolutions, focuses primarily on employment and commercial matters. But his perspective comes from more than four decades practicing law. He also worked as a senior executive at two Fortune 50 companies and founded a consumer products startup that operated for five years.

Those experiences, Leb said, help him understand the pressures parties bring into mediation.

"I know firsthand some of the things that every participant in a mediation is actually worried about -- not just the legal exposure, but the practical and emotional pressures driving the decision to settle or fight," he said.

Leb's approach begins with preparation. He said he reads everything submitted, conducts additional research when necessary and establishes early that he understands the factual and legal issues.

Then comes candor.

"I tell both sides early what I actually think the strengths and weaknesses of their case are," Leb said. "People negotiate more honestly with a mediator who has demonstrated they'll level with them, even when it's uncomfortable."

Leb said his years as a neutral have also convinced him that many disputes stem less from irreconcilable facts than failures of communication. Parties often sincerely believe different versions of events because they have spent months or years viewing the dispute through their own lens.

A mediator's role, he said, is often to close that information gap and help each side appreciate the risk that a judge or jury might see the evidence differently.

Leb said volunteering has also broadened his experience by exposing him to disputes outside his usual employment and commercial practice, including personal injury matters.

His advice to new mediators reflects lessons learned over nearly two decades as a neutral.

"Resist the urge to solve the case in the first hour," Leb said. "Being right does not matter. Listen more than you talk. Slow down, ask harder questions than either side's own lawyer is asking, and let credibility build before you push for movement."