When Mediation Evaluates: Stretching the Model or Renaming the Process?

What happens when evaluation enters the mediation room? This panel examines the conceptual and practical tension between mediation and evaluation. Is evaluation a useful tool that can be deployed responsibly within mediation, or does it shift the mediator’s role so fundamentally that the process ceases to be mediation at all? Panellists will debate whether evaluative interventions can sit coherently within mediation without undermining its core principles, or whether clarity and transparency demand that we call this work something else. The conversation will address power, consent, professionalism, and the practical realities facing mediators working in complex, high-stakes disputes.