Screening Tool: When to Invest in Mediation

Settlement Testing™ is an 18-minute ADR tool that shows you when the other side is genuinely serious about settling your case. You learn when mediation is likely to succeed. It saves you from wasting time and money (and client hopes) mediating a case that is not yet ready to settle.

How it works: both sides log into the Testing website at an agreed-upon time. For 18 minutes, the parties submit potential settlement numbers into a server. The server compares the numbers and kicks out a thermometer reading to the negotiators, telling them how close their numbers are. 

A cold temperature reading means the numbers are far apart; a hot temperature means the numbers are close.

Best of all, the other side doesn’t see the numbers you send into the thermometer. If the numbers get hot and you feel you can settle the case right then and there, you obviously have the power to disclose any number you want. 
But that is completely your call.

The Settlement Testing tool was created in an affiliated ADR and research company (First Court). We can make this tool available to our GSV lawyers, at no charge. Your time savings can be enormous.