Somewhere along the way, law led me to something deeper: mediation.
In 2015, I began my mediator training with Christian Hartwig – and it was THE transformative experience of my last decade, if not of my entire career so far.
After years of thinking in legal categories – right and wrong, true and false, good and bad – I suddenly found myself in a space that spoke a completely different language: that of feelings and needs.
I realized how much my education – both in school and later in law – had trained me to evaluate and categorize rather than to perceive emotions and the motivations behind human behavior.
Law teaches us to classify, to decide, to judge. Mediation, in contrast, invites us to listen, to understand, and to connect.
☝️ What struck me most was this: children do this naturally.
They don’t rationalize their emotions; they express them.
If a child sees a dog and feels afraid, it says to the parent: “Dog. Afraid. Arm.”
Pure emotion: fear. Pure need: safety & protection. No story, no justification.
That year of 2015, in a wonderful group of open, curious people from various professional backgrounds, I relearned something essential that I had long unlearned: how to approach conflicts — and ultimately life — from a non-evaluative perspective.
Recently, while talking about my meditation practice and about what might come next, a friend said to me:
🗣️ “𝙈𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 — 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩’𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙡𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙗𝙚𝙡𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙡𝙖𝙬.”
And she was right. (Thank you for that sentence, Nina Reicke). Because while mediation is, in a way, the opposite of law, it is the yin to its yang and to me and many others represents the highest discipline in dispute resolution.
It requires clarity, empathy, and the courage to see beyond being right.
Since 2015, I’ve had the privilege to mediate and accompany countless commercial and corporate disputes — especially within family-owned and privately held enterprises — both as counsel and as mediator.
Each one has reminded me that beneath every contract, every conflict, there are people — and that understanding them is often the real art.
🙏 My gratitude goes to Christian for opening the door to a whole new world, to my fantastic mediation group of 2015 (we should do a reunion), and to all those who have trusted me to facilitate their most sensitive negotiations.
Because so many times, the most powerful resolution begins not with argument, but with understanding.
📌 There will be more coming from my mediation practice soon. Stay tuned.
🔜 Next stop: Reflection #13 – A New Home For The Firm
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