What is mediation? My Ricky Martin Story…

Ricky Martin singing to my friend (and a packed house) during his Las Vegas show.

From an early age, I have been passionate about negotiation in all its forms. So it is no surprise that I was immediately drawn to the concept of mediation. I love working with parties to empower them to find resolution to some of their stickiest issues. I am often asked, what is mediation? While some will give the formal explanation that “mediation is a negotiation between two or more parties facilitated by an agreed-upon third party.” See Harvard Law School, The Program on Negotiation, What is Mediation?, available at https://www.pon.harvard.edu/tag/mediation/ (last accessed on October 2, 2025). Unpacking this simple explanation can implicate a multitude of academic and professional fields. For the excellent treatise Mediation: Negotiation by Other Moves, the authors used this lovely definition: “ [a]n impartial external intervention, offered to (and/or requested by) conflicting parties, to organize exchanges with a view to building mutually acceptable solutions.” Alain Lempereur, et al., Mediation: Negotiation by Other Moves (2021). For me, I like to share my Ricky Martin Story.

Once upon a time, many moons ago as my father would say, I was in high school with my best friend who loved Ricky Martin. And I do not mean loved as in, “wow he’s great” or “I have his poster in my room” —I mean loved Ricky Martin. As in, “I have listened to his music so much my parents know the words by heart—when neither English nor Spanish is their native language”. My friend was obsessed. Then one day, we learned that Ricky would be releasing a new single at the Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard and anyone willing to wait for hours in a long line in the sun could meet him. My friend was over the moon excited with one tiny hitch. These two straight A students had an AP English final the same day. We could not miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, nor could we risk our entire futures by missing our AP final. (Remember these are teenager brains…please be kind!)

So we agonized and fretted. We had never skipped school, let alone missed a test or assignment. I knew my friend wanted this one thing more than anything and there had to be a way. I summoned the courage to ask our teacher, Mrs. S, if we could work something out. Her initial reaction was to assume we were joking…no one skips the AP final. But I had paid attention in class and listened to our teacher’s stories carefully. I knew that she and my friend had something important in common: Mrs. S loved George Clooney the way my friend loved Ricky Martin. “Mrs. S,” I explained, “this is our chance for my friend to meet her George Clooney.” Mrs. S shook her head, but I could tell she suddenly understood, on a deeper level, just how important this was to my friend. Eventually, she relented and agreed to let us take the exam a day late. My friend and I spent hours in the sun, listening to Living La Vida Loca on repeat, ultimately meeting Mr. Martin and creating one of our best high school memories. That is mediation to me.

Some might question how this bizarre experience counts as mediation, but on closer inspection, we can see that this was a classic example of straightforward mediation techniques. We had two “opposing” parties, my friend and Mrs. S, with different objectives. In the simplest terms: my friend wanted not to do something and Mrs. S wanted her to do that thing. Long before the day of mediation, the parties prepared in many ways, some intentional and some unintentional.

Preparation is Key

Mrs. S had spent the entire school year hammering the importance of the AP final exam. She gave us homework assignments and quizzed us and made sure to remind us of the importance of the test as we counted down the days towards the exam. Meanwhile, my friend had researched how to get access to the event, secured a car and the money for gas, and, even secured agreement from parents that we could miss the day if we could get permission from our teacher. She had also prepared me, the mediator, by arming me with her arguments regarding how important this was to her. Critically, we had also built trust. Mrs. S knew that we had faithfully returned every assignment, succeeded on every exam, and had diligently studied for the final. We had built trust with Mrs. S over the course of the school year and she, in turn, had earned our respect.

Negotiation in Action

The day of the meeting was carefully planned. We treated this negotiation with the seriousness with which we wanted Mrs. S to see it. We chose the timing to enable fulsome discussion, anticipating pushback and leaving enough advance timing to regroup with a plan B should she turn us away. We did not jump in with our end-of-day ask, but instead engaged in gentle conversation to set the stage for a proper negotiation. We left space for her to respond and listened to those responses. Mrs. S had good reasons to refuse our request: she couldn’t do this for everyone; there could be concerns that a student would use the extra time to cheat on the exam; the list went on and on. We considered and addressed each of the concerns. Over the course of the back-and-forth, we eliminated some of each party’s concerns.

Reaching the Deal

Finally, sensing the parties were close to truly understanding each other, I jumped in with the shared connection between my friend and Mrs. S—the deep longing for the chance to spend just a moment with their respective Ricky/George. We had actively listened, eliminated barriers, proposed alternatives, and engaged one another with true empathy. Mrs. S’s preparation was reflected back to her in the deep respect and importance we placed both on the exam and in securing her permission. She negotiated the terms that were important to her and set the timing and conditions for the makeup exam. The parties reached agreement and I learned many valuable lessons.

Among those lessons, I learned that every mediation is unique, but at its core mediation is the opportunity for parties to come together for a facilitated discussion where the aim is to find a solution that is agreeable to all parties. In the role of the facilitator of that discussion (albeit with a bias of my own in that case!), I learned to appreciate the ability to bring parties together and to help them reframe their arguments to be truly heard by the other side. These techniques have become a bit more sophisticated over time, but the goal remains the same.

If you are ready to mediate your next case, please feel free to reach out. In the meantime, please enjoy Living La Vida Loca.

I can be reached for comments, questions, or booking at www.shireenwetmoremediation.com.