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Hot take: small claims mediators aren't neutral, they just push for settlement
I took a landlord dispute over a $1,200 deposit to small claims in Denver and the mediator spent 20 minutes convincing me to settle for half because 'the judge is booked 8 months out'. I walked away feeling like she worked for the other guy, not for fairness. Has anyone else had a mediator that clearly just wanted to clear the docket instead of actually helping either side?
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lane.drew1mo ago
Dude yes, absolutely! I had almost the same thing happen with a contractor dispute. The mediator just kept saying how long it would take to get a trial and how much it would cost me, practically pushing me to take a deal I didn't even want. It felt like they were just a settlement machine, not someone trying to figure out who was actually right. Like, isn't the whole point of mediation to get a fair outcome, not just the quickest one? My lawyer friend says they get paid by the case too, so clearing the docket is literally their job. Makes you wonder why we even bother with the process sometimes.
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abbyr961mo ago
I read somewhere that mediators have a success rate metric that basically measures "cases settled" not "cases resolved fairly." So their whole incentive is to get you to agree to anything that isn't a trial. I remember this article about a guy who walked away from mediation and his lawyer told him the mediator actually got paid a bonus from the court for hitting a certain settlement quota that month. Makes it feel less like justice and more like assembly line work.
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