Virginia Goldblatt has used a varied background in the law and English literature to make a name for herself in the behind-closed-doors world of mediation. She talks to Paul Mulrooney.

Virginia Goldblatt has a compelling analogy to describe how people frequently feel before engaging her services as a top mediator.

“Every person in conflict thinks they are the princess in the tower and the other person is the dragon, ogre or the witch that is keeping them there.”

The analogy comes from one of her mentors Professor Ken Cloke, one of many who have inspired her with her chosen profession. This year she received a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year’s Honours for services to mediation and arbitration.

The former director of the Massey University Dispute Resolution Centre and current director of the University Mediation Service, has been a mediator since 1994, but uses her background of studying law and verbal dexterity as a former English literature lecturer with the English department to paint a colourful and very contemporary picture of the art of mediation.

This time it’s an analogy about the television recording system MySky.

“It’s as though you’ve got your MySky there and you’re watching something and you decide to pause it and nothing happens on the screen. (That’s what mediation is). If you actually resolve the matter at mediation then you press stop because you’re not going to watch the rest of the programme. But if you don’t succeed, what you do is press play and off it goes again from where it was. It goes from where you paused it,” she says.

“For those of us who believe mediation is worth trying, we’re very clear to people that if they go into the room with a course of action legally, they don’t lose that, it just stays out of the room until we see if we can reach agreement a different way, and if they don’t they still have all the options they had in the first place.”

Goldblatt has believed in mediation since the mid-1990s when she helped a colleague – Associate Professor Roger Pitchforth – who was setting up Massey’s pioneering Diploma in Dispute Resolution, by delivering a paper on dispute resolution communication skills. Her own commitment to the programme was reinforced by the fact she was also enrolled as a student in the diploma.

“What happened in the end was I that I could bring to that field much of what I cared about in terms of English literature, that is people and how they work and what motivates them and how we can use language and understanding to illuminate experience, all that stuff -plus, at last , engage in my long-standing interest in the law and the resolution of justiciable disputes.”

Goldblatt also believes that three key tenets of Greek philosopher Aristotle’s art of persuasion: ethos, pathos and logos, are as key to mediation practice as they are to the art of persuasion.

Ethos provides the skills and experience a mediator brings to the table, pathos the empathy necessary to listen to contrasting views, and logos the ability to understand the issues and process the detail.

“There is no point having strong and reasonable argument, logos, if you don’t have the other two qualities,” she says.

“The offer that mediation makes to parties is that nobody in this room will be right or wrong. This isn’t about finding fact and fault, this isn’t about blaming and justifying, this isn’t about victims and villains, this is about people restoring their relationships, resolving the issues and looking forward rather than back.”

Mediation should not be used, she says, where there is a public good imperative to decide matters on the record, to create precedent or address ongoing wrongdoing such as in criminal matters, or where there is serious or immediate risk of harm – a faulty product, for instance, the continued existence of which may pose a danger to those outside mediation.

“Mediation is an option that’s good to use as soon as possible if it’s appropriate, because it’s the one that will do the least other harm, the least collatoral damage the least distress and division.”

But as it is with the princess in the tower anology, it’s up to the people in dispute to to take some responsibility for finding a way out.

“When you go into mediation those people are looking to you to be the rescuer, the knight in shining armour, and your first job as a mediator is to make them understand they’ve got the keys in their own hands.”

She expresses regret that, after 25 years, the dispute resolution qualification has been discontinued by the University, especially at a time when mediation is being used more than ever in a wide range of areas. She remains hopeful that education in dispute resolution can find a new place in the academic community.

As well as working in private practice, Goldblatt retains connections with Massey through her work providing leadership with the University’s Centre for Professional and Continuing Education, in an ongoing joint venture between the University and the New Zealand Law Society CLE to develop and deliver mediation education for lawyers. The programme has been expanded to partner with the Cook Islands Law Society.
She is also a member of Massey’s human resources team, leading the University’s internal mediation service.

A strong comnmunications thread runs through Goldblatt’s entire career, including introducing a spoken communication paper to the University in the 1980s. It spreads into extra curricular activities too, ranging from acting and directing in theatre, to debating and coaching members of the New Zealand schools’ and University debating teams.

She sees the New Year’s Honour as recognition of a profession that to some extent is hidden from public view because of the need for client confidentiality in the process.

“ To see someone in this area get a bit of recognition feels like affirmation for what others have also chosen to do.”
Virginia Goldblatt has a compelling analogy to describe how people frequently feel before engaging her services as a top mediator.

“Every person in conflict thinks they are the princess in the tower and the other person is the dragon, ogre or the witch that is keeping them there.”

The analogy comes from one of her mentors Professor Ken Cloke, one of many who have inspired her with her chosen profession. This year she received a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year’s Honours for services to mediation and arbitration.

The former director of the Massey University Dispute Resolution Centre and current director of the University Mediation Service, has been a mediator since 1994, but uses her background of studying law and verbal dexterity as a former English literature lecturer with the English department to paint a colourful and very contemporary picture of the art of mediation.

This time it’s an analogy about the television recording system MySky.

“It’s as though you’ve got your MySky there and you’re watching something and you decide to pause it and nothing happens on the screen. (That’s what mediation is). If you actually resolve the matter at mediation then you press stop because you’re not going to watch the rest of the programme. But if you don’t succeed, what you do is press play and off it goes again from where it was. It goes from where you paused it,” she says.

“For those of us who believe mediation is worth trying, we’re very clear to people that if they go into the room with a course of action legally, they don’t lose that, it just stays out of the room until we see if we can reach agreement a different way, and if they don’t they still have all the options they had in the first place.”

Goldblatt has believed in mediation since the mid-1990s when she helped a colleague – Associate Professor Roger Pitchforth – who was setting up Massey’s pioneering Diploma in Dispute Resolution, by delivering a paper on dispute resolution communication skills. Her own commitment to the programme was reinforced by the fact she was also enrolled as a student in the diploma.

“What happened in the end was I that I could bring to that field much of what I cared about in terms of English literature, that is people and how they work and what motivates them and how we can use language and understanding to illuminate experience, all that stuff -plus, at last , engage in my long-standing interest in the law and the resolution of justiciable disputes.”

Goldblatt also believes that three key tenets of Greek philosopher Aristotle’s art of persuasion: ethos, pathos and logos, are as key to mediation practice as they are to the art of persuasion.

Ethos provides the skills and experience a mediator brings to the table, pathos the empathy necessary to listen to contrasting views, and logos the ability to understand the issues and process the detail.

“There is no point having strong and reasonable argument, logos, if you don’t have the other two qualities,” she says.

“The offer that mediation makes to parties is that nobody in this room will be right or wrong. This isn’t about finding fact and fault, this isn’t about blaming and justifying, this isn’t about victims and villains, this is about people restoring their relationships, resolving the issues and looking forward rather than back.”

Mediation should not be used, she says, where there is a public good imperative to decide matters on the record, to create precedent or address ongoing wrongdoing such as in criminal matters, or where there is serious or immediate risk of harm – a faulty product, for instance, the continued existence of which may pose a danger to those outside mediation.

“Mediation is an option that’s good to use as soon as possible if it’s appropriate, because it’s the one that will do the least other harm, the least collatoral damage the least distress and division.”

But as it is with the princess in the tower anology, it’s up to the people in dispute to to take some responsibility for finding a way out.

“When you go into mediation those people are looking to you to be the rescuer, the knight in shining armour, and your first job as a mediator is to make them understand they’ve got the keys in their own hands.”

She expresses regret that, after 25 years, the dispute resolution qualification has been discontinued by the University, especially at a time when mediation is being used more than ever in a wide range of areas. She remains hopeful that education in dispute resolution can find a new place in the academic community.

As well as working in private practice, Goldblatt retains connections with Massey through her work providing leadership with the University’s Centre for Professional and Continuing Education, in an ongoing joint venture between the University and the New Zealand Law Society CLE to develop and deliver mediation education for lawyers. The programme has been expanded to partner with the Cook Islands Law Society.
She is also a member of Massey’s human resources team, leading the University’s internal mediation service.

A strong comnmunications thread runs through Goldblatt’s entire career, including introducing a spoken communication paper to the University in the 1980s. It spreads into extra curricular activities too, ranging from acting and directing in theatre, to debating and coaching members of the New Zealand schools’ and University debating teams.

She sees the New Year’s Honour as recognition of a profession that to some extent is hidden from public view because of the need for client confidentiality in the process.

“ To see someone in this area get a bit of recognition feels like affirmation for what others have also chosen to do.”