We are living in a moment where the centre of society feels like it’s cracking. Polarisation is no longer abstract, it’s showing up at dinner tables, in workplaces, and in parliament. Social media rewards outrage, making disputes louder and harder to de-escalate. People feel the legal system is inaccessible: too expensive, too slow, too confusing.
This is not a neutral time. This is not a time where “business as usual” is enough, especially for those of us working with people in conflict.
In a world where people feel unheard, unsafe, and unseen, the quality of those who hold conflict matters more than ever.
If you think mediation is simply a process, you’re missing the point. If you think ethics is only about following the rules, you’re underestimating the moment we’re in.
Aspirational ethics is not a nice-to-have. It is the character required to do this work in 2025 and beyond.
The Invisible Nature of Our Work
Mediation takes place in an ethically unusual space. It is confidential, unrecorded, and largely unmonitored. There are few consequences for poor practice and very few ways for clients to know whether what they received met any meaningful standard.
In the 1980s in Australia, there was a notorious figure called Mick Gatto, frequently referenced in the media as a mediator who helped people sort out business disputes. Gatto was also famous for his role in Melbourne’s underworld conflicts. Nobody can say for sure how he conducted his mediations, but what is clear is that people were calling it mediation. And no one could easily say it wasn’t.
Gatto aside, mediators rarely cross ethical lines intentionally. It happens in the small moments of drifting, of assuming, of not examining the habits we’ve inherited.
Research in Australia about the impact of our National Mediation Standards revealed something quietly worrying. Many accredited mediators weren’t fully aware of what the standards required, and their day-to-day practice often wasn’t compliant. People spoke openly about giving advice, steering parties toward settlement, or shutting down topics they felt were unhelpful, even when those topics mattered to the parties themselves.
Only recently, I overheard a senior lawyer-mediator telling a newly accredited colleague that the “secret” to getting parties to settle was simply not letting them leave or have anything to eat until they signed an agreement. This was not said as a joke.
In the United States, the ABA Ethics Committee has just released Ethics Opinion 518, spelling out that mediators must not make misleading statements about the strength of a party’s case, must not misrepresent bottom lines, and must not tell people that a proposed settlement is in their best interests. The fact that such guidance needed to be issued tells us something important.
Together, these examples point to a deeper truth: rules and standards alone cannot hold our practice steady. Not because mediators behave like underworld figures, but because these guidelines cannot prevent unethical behaviour, and they do nothing to call us toward the kind of artistry this work demands.
Our main ethical risk today is not intentional wrongdoing, but complacency.
Why “Good Enough” Is Not Enough
If our only professional ambition is to avoid ending up in court or in front of a complaints panel, the bar is too low. And here’s the uncomfortable truth: it’s easy to hide behind that bar.
Most clients don’t really know what mediation is. Research by Professor Liz Stokoe at the London School of Economics revealed that mediators are often not very good at describing what they do, we explain through philosophical principles like impartiality and self-determination, and by saying what we don’t do. This isn’t very informative for prospective clients.
Dr Emily Skinner’s research showed that there is high social need for mediation, yet low market demand. Clients don’t understand what we do or how it can help them.
This isn’t just a marketing problem. When people don’t understand what we do, they miss out on support that could genuinely help them.
We need radical transparency, much better explanations of what we do and why, so clients can make informed decisions about participating, request variations they might need, and hold us accountable.
But clearer descriptions aren’t enough. We need to move beyond selling a process to demonstrating that mediators are professionals people can trust with their most difficult challenges.
We shouldn’t just ask people to “trust the process.” We should demonstrate they can trust the person facilitating it. And trust at this level is not simply about following rules. This is where aspirational ethics comes in.
Three Levels of Ethics
There are three levels of ethics in our field.
At the base is legal liability, the nightmare scenario where a mediator is so careless that a court finds them liable. In practice, it almost never happens. No mediator in the UK, or anywhere I’m aware of, has been ordered to pay compensation. The worst that usually happens is that a mediated agreement gets set aside.
The second layer is professional misconduct: complaints, disciplinary processes, codes of practice. The consequences range from extra training to removal from the register. But complaints rely on someone noticing, being willing to complain, and a body willing to act. Many mediators who act poorly never come under scrutiny.
Then there’s the third layer: aspirational ethics. This is not about avoiding liability or punishment. Aspirational ethics focuses on the character of the practitioner.
When the work is invisible, the only thing the public can rely on is our integrity.
Rule-based ethics are too limited to address complex, real-world dilemmas. They’re incapable of covering every situation, reactive rather than proactive, and focused on avoiding harm rather than promoting excellence.
Aspirational ethics asks a different question. Instead of “What must I avoid doing?”, it asks: “Who am I seeking to be as a practitioner?”
Rather than “What does the rule say?”, it asks: “What would a wise and ethical practitioner do in this situation?”
Aspirational ethics is not about what we must do, it’s about who we must become.
Process as Privilege
If you look back at the origins of what we now call the standard facilitative model, you find a particular moment in history. In the 1970s and 1980s, influential figures like Christopher Moore, Roger Fisher, and William Ury popularised a structured, interest-based approach designed for corporate and diplomatic spheres. These were largely white, male, North American consultants drawing on negotiation research from institutions like Harvard.
Once that structure caught on, it became the template. Textbooks, accreditation systems, and training organisations adopted that flow, reinforcing it through training manuals and assessment rubrics. The same linear model was carried across jurisdictions and replicated almost unchanged. Many practitioners can recite the stages in their sleep.
This raises a deeper question: why has a model created by a small group of white, middle-aged men in Western corporate environments remained so central for so long?
One answer is inertia, once professional systems adopt a framework, it becomes embedded in training, accreditation, and policy. Another is comfort: linear, predictable steps match dominant cultural norms in law, business, and public administration.
There’s also an unspoken power dynamic. When one worldview becomes institutionalised as “best practice,” alternative approaches must justify themselves while the dominant model rarely has to.
We rarely ask: Whose communication norms does this model privilege? Whose expectations of conflict does it assume? Who is quietly excluded because the model doesn’t imagine them?
The point is not to discard the facilitative approach, it has many strengths. But if we want mediation to be relevant, inclusive, and responsive, we need to be honest about what we’ve inherited.
The Myths We Tell Ourselves
Aspirational ethics requires constant critical reflection, about our practice and the things we take for granted.
Mediators often say, “We control the process and the parties control the content.” We like to think how we structure a session doesn’t affect the content. But decades of conversation analysis research show that mediators shape the story far more than we admit. Our questions are interventions, not neutral prompts. Who speaks first, how the agenda is shaped, the timing and style of our questions, all profoundly influence what is said and decided.
We also assume this process works for everyone. But sitting together for hours of intense face-to-face conversation using a structured process isn’t the best approach for all people. Autistic clients, for example, may need more time to process, different approaches to communication, shorter sessions with frequent breaks. Instead of designing a process that works for them, we’ve traditionally screened them out as lacking capacity. This isn’t good enough. We shouldn’t only provide self-determination for people who find our process comfortable.
Too often, we treat self-determination as simply “the parties make the final decision.” But self-determination should start much earlier. Clients should understand, in a nuanced way, the kind of mediation they’re agreeing to. They should be able to say “Yes, this is the process I want,” not stumble into a model by default.
These questions are not just about technique or informed consent. They ask us to look beyond competent practice toward something more demanding: the artistry of mediation.
Artistry means working with intention, understanding the impact of our choices, being transparent about why we intervene the way we do. It means asking not just “Did I avoid a complaint today?” but “How did my interventions shape the outcome? Did I use my influence wisely? Did I act in a way I would stand by if it were visible to the world?”
What Aspirational Ethics Looks Like in Practice
Being radically transparent about what mediation is and isn’t, in ways lay clients can understand.
Owning our power and using it with care, rather than pretending it doesn’t exist.
Embedding reflective practice as routine, not an afterthought.
Building cultures of accountability in our profession, even when formal systems are weak.
And perhaps most of all, holding ourselves to the standard of being the best mediator we can be, consistent with our personal values and what our clients actually need.
In Conclusion
The easy path for mediators is quiet anonymity. Few complaints, no liability, business as usual. But if that’s all we aspire to, we risk selling short the very promise of mediation.
Aspirational ethics asks more. It asks that we bring skill, creativity, self-awareness, and courage. It asks that we treat every mediation not just as a professional service, but as a chance to model a better way of handling human conflict.
Ask yourself not just, “Am I doing this work well?” Ask: “Am I becoming the person who can hold the kind of conflicts the future will bring?”
Because in the end, aspirational ethics is not about rules. It is about identity, courage, and the future we are shaping, one conversation at a time.
And if we rise to that task, mediation becomes not just a dispute resolution process, but a quiet revolution in how we hold each other through uncertainty.
*This is a condensed version of a plenary I gave at the Scottish Mediation Association conference in December 2025. You can watch the whole talk here:https://vimeo.com/1143684883.