Although a career in mediation may be difficult to achieve, it will most certainly be worth the trouble, Michael Keating said. Those familiar with Keating’s career are likely unsurprised by Keating’s candid, balanced approach — an approach that is likely responsible for his success in alternative dispute resolution.

On Nov. 17, Keating, who presently serves as a special master for a federal court in California and continues to conduct select commercial and employment mediations, shared an insider’s perspective on careers in mediation with students at the Levin College of Law, sponsored by the Gators for Alternative Dispute Resolution.

Professor Leonard Riskin, who currently teaches courses in mediation and alternative dispute resolution at the UF Law, provided an introduction for Keating, calling him “one of the great mediators of our day” and “a pioneer” in mediation.

“I decided very early as a lawyer that I did not want to practice the traditional type of law. I wanted to do something different,” Keating said of his career.

Keating counted himself lucky for having been a practitioner when mediation was first applied outside of the labor law context — an application that he was largely responsible for, as part of a group that devised using mediation in prison settings to address grievances between inmates and corrections officers.

Of his early years in mediation, Keating humbly admitted that “[w]e had some successes and we had some failures.”

Keating attributed the initial failures to a general misunderstanding of the introduction of mediation as a radically new proposition where such concepts were “essentially alien.”

The application of mediation to school discipline settings between school administrators and a student’s parents, in which the student is essentially excluded from the process, is what Keating calls “a parable for what often happens with mediation.”

Where both parties are not equally represented and empowered to negotiate, Keating explained, “there is a tendency on the part of the system to take mediation and turn it into a process for pushing the administration’s control of whatever the environment is.”

Keating has since helped facilitate the use of mediation in other institutional settings, such as hospitals, as well as in private civil matters, during his ten-year tenure with a large corporate law firm in Rhode Island.

According to Keating, mediators wishing to practice in Florida have an advantage because alternative dispute resolution methods have gained greater recognition in Florida as “bona fide components of the legal process” than in other states.

Despite the widespread acceptance of alternative dispute resolution in Florida, however, Keating stated that traditional methods of settlements and litigation remain the preferred paths to the practice of law among most attorneys.

“There’s still that lingering concern that what has happened in the growth of the alternative movement results in a dilution of the role of the judges and the litigating bar,” Keating explained.

Keating cautioned that making a career out of mediation is not easy.

“If you’re really interested in mediation, whether you’re in Florida, which is fairly attuned to the concept, it’s a long road to hull,” he said. Keating added that “becoming a mediator is something that you want to plan on occurring over a long period of time. Do not cut yourself off from the traditional lawyer opportunities. Go get them.”

Ever one to provide balanced representation, Keating was sure to also offer some words of hope: “do not get discouraged. It is not easy…but it is worth it.”