“Convince me.” When I am your mediator, that is your job. The easier you make it for me to understand your case, the easier it will be for me to put your case forward in the other room. As I often say, at mediation, you want to “help your mediator to help you.”
I have frequently commented on the need for counsel to put forward their best case at mediation, but the reality is that in many cases, counsel miss the opportunity to be a zealous advocate. Instead, they go through the motions when it comes to advocacy at mediation, doing little more than copying their pleading into a mediation brief and then showing up at mediation without a firm grasp of the case and evidence.