Can the mediator wear two hats during the process, such as a mediator and a lawyer or a mediator and a therapist?

You’re not allowed to be anything but the mediator when you’re in mediation. However, it’s not like you can’t leave out your life experience. Because you do have life experience that helps, and whether that life experience came from being a mediator or being a lawyer or doing finances, you can still use that information within the process. However, you can’t give legal, therapeutic, or financial advice because you are a mediator when you’re in there.

With 30 years of experience in family law, Laura M. Urbik Kern is a certified mediator and family lawyer who concentrates on dissolution, family and juvenile law, child support, and complex domestic relations cases.