Why Is It So Hard to Get Paid as a Mediator, Especially Working Online? Shining a Spotlight on a Universal Pain Point and How Tech Can Help Address It

Published to the LMINetwork Newsletter.

As mediators, we are in the business of peace—but it is still a business.

Yet, for many of us, the hardest part of the job isn’t the complex multi-party negotiation; it’s the uncomfortable administrative work of chasing fees. Consider whether you’ve experienced any of these scenarios:

1. A court-ordered mediation where one party pays by the deadline, but the other drags their feet, effectively delaying the session until the final minutes.
   
2. Both parties have paid and the mediation has started, but as they move into overtime, it remains unclear whether both sides will cover the additional costs.
   
3. A party appears with their attorney, and both look to each other to pay their share, leaving you caught in the middle.
   
4. A party attempts to pay with non-guaranteed funds, like a personal check or a mere promise to pay, leaving you uncertain if you will be compensated.
   
5. A party arrives and states plainly that they don’t have the money, leaving you to decide how to handle the situation (this one’s my favorite).
   
6. The parties show up without paying and inform you they have agreed that neither can afford your fee, leaving you to decide on what to do next.
   
7. A party demands a refund because they paid, but the mediation cannot commence due to the other side’s non-payment.
   

All of the above has happened to me. While my collection practices have matured over the years, early on as a young mediator, this collections issue was a major challenge. Collecting fees from mediation parties as a neutral was fundamentally different from collecting fees from my own individual law clients. My mediation training did not prepare me for this part of ADR practice. When the pandemic hit and everything went online, additional challenges arose in my ODR practice. For example, my office lost the ability to collect physical cash from in-person participants. This posed a challenge for some parties and removed a popular way for my office to collect funds. 

I believe these operational hurdles are a primary reason why some practices fail to grow. This “Business Gap” is real. Bill Glover’s Texas Mediator Field Study 2025 found that a staggering 70% of mediators are frustrated with the operational side of their practice. He concluded that managing payments independently and lacking standard invoicing workflows are common struggles for those in their first three years of practice. In my 2024 e-book The 5-Step Online Mediation Practice, I addressed how critical this phase of addressing money is for a mediation practice.

Trying to Address the Situation

In the early days of my mediation practice, I had a law practice that could keep me afloat and help cover my business costs and address gaps in work. Many novice “full-time” mediators, however, had to address their startup issues by learning from mentors, relying on their own business acumen, and when customers were few, running a lean organization. Some collections tips they likely heard include:

1. Insist on a 48-hour (or longer) payment deadline to ensure retainers are cleared before the session.
2. Put everything in writing regarding payments, deadlines, cancellations, and overtime.
3. Clearly identify who is responsible for payment, especially when attorneys are involved since money disputes can arise between a lawyer and their own client.
4. Task another colleague with sending payment reminders to reduce the personal awkwardness of chasing fees.
5. Encourage parties to keep a credit card on file for easy billing of overtime.
6. Signal the likelihood of overtime fees early so parties can prepare to pay.
7. Use another colleague to “pop in” to your Zoom mediation season to address payment issues so you can remain focused on the mediation.
8. Accept credit or debit cards and avoid personal checks; be flexible and accept modern methods like Zelle, Venmo, or CashApp.
9. Don’t hesitate to call a recess if progress is being made but continuing that day is cost-prohibitive.
10. Stand by your cancellation policies and educate parties on the reality of lost business opportunities to your office.

While these practical steps can help manage your workflow, they don’t always address the deeper issue of how the public perceives our role.

As Alberto Elisavetski recently shared during our discussion regarding the new ZODR AI online mediation tool, a major reason why it can be challenging to get paid for mediation services, is the public often treats mediation like a “hobby” rather than a critical professional function. Because there isn’t a “judge” staring them down, mediation parties sometimes feel they can negotiate fees or delay payment. This is especially true when a mediation party in a dispute feels like they “are not in the wrong,” and therefore do not have a true obligation to pay.  

How Mediating Online Changed Getting Paid

Additionally, because of the “newness” of online mediation, a paying party may not take the virtual mediation process seriously enough that it’s worth their money. Before 2020, when mediation parties walked into my law office and visited the front reception desk to make their mediation payment, there was an obvious expectation that they would in fact be paying for something of value: my time in my physical business.  That experience of entering a business and paying a human being for value was normal and routine. But when the mediation experience went online, things felt less “real” and apparently so did modern parties’ duty to pay. That is the natural evolution of things unless we train them differently. 

Online mediation parties should not be completely blamed for their unwillingness to want to pay for the online mediation experience. The online space is a fundamentally different environment with different expectations from the traditional in-person experience. The online mediation still does not seem “real” to many people. Therefore, the online mediator needs to address their payment policies, processes, and procedures for the online mediation experience. Reflexively assuming non-payment or hesitation to pay on the part of online mediation parties as purely intended to annoy is a mistake when they have not been trained by the online mediator class about the serious and credible profession that is online mediation. Closing this gap requires a proactive approach that combines clear communication with structured business practices.

Some Tips for Getting Paid, Both In-Person and Online

Drawing from best practices, including what I’ve seen work for me, here are several solutions to ensure you are compensated for your time:

1. Prepare not Just Your Parties, but the Public: Place a page on your website that explains in advance how payment works at your practice. It’s ok for potential mediation parties and their attorneys to know ahead of time your policies and procedures regarding payments. See an example where I address how to pay for mediation on my website’s mediation preparation page.  

2. Send Clear Billing Instructions in Confirmation Letter: Remember that parties and attorneys are busy and don’t have time to review 10 different emails with 10 different instructions. Send 1 email confirmation that contains how, when, and where to pay. Then reply to that email when following up. My confirmation letter includes just 4 clear sections: Confirmation, Zoom Information, Mediation Fee, and Cancellation Policy. 

3. Have a Clear Cancellation Policy: Typically, it’s a financial loss when after confirming a mediation on your calendar, the mediation parties seek to cancel. This is especially bad when they seek to cancel at the last minute. A good practice for handling cancellations is to make parties aware they will incur a cancellation fee. Typically, I waive such fees when parties reschedule for a first time in an ongoing mediation case.

4. Require Advance Payment: Try not to calendar a date until the initial retainer or full flat fee is received and cleared. If you must book a date, have an effective cancellation policy that’s delivered to everyone.
   
5. Automate Your Invoices: Use platforms like Stripe to send e-invoices with payment links with additional reminders as the payment deadline approaches.
   
6. Build in Admin Time: Especially for arbitrators, actually write in time for prep, reading, and drafting and circulate it so no one is surprised at payment time by work performed out of session.
   
7. Prepare for Overtime Billing: For sessions that are about to go over, announce prior to reaching overtime that payment is anticipated. This will increase your chances of getting paid at the beginning of overtime.
   

A Word About The ZODR Difference: Building Fluidity and Avoiding Further Conflict Over Money

When designing ZODR, the online mediation platform for Zoom, we did a lot of thinking about things from the perspective of the mediator.  Usually, DSD, or dispute system design, focuses on the experience of the disputing parties. But we believe that on some issues, like the payment and collections pain points experienced by mediators, attention should be placed on eliminating the mediator’s specific dilemma, so they can be free to do their best work to help their parties settle. 

In the online environment, this means designing technology as part of an ODR platform that assists in collecting money in the most fluid way possible so that all participants see payment and collections as a natural part of the entire service transaction. If there’s friction between the mediator and his or her parties at the money collection phase, then that may cause issues like creating conflict between the mediator and parties, including creating feelings within a party about the mediator’s neutrality. Additionally, friction over money can create deep division between the parties themselves, something that can break the flow of the mediation and promote mistrust. 

At ZODR, we believe ODR technology should defend a mediator’s time to help them get paid while simultaneously encouraging settlement. Therefore, we built the Stripe payments system directly into the platform. We integrated Stripe because it’s one of the largest credit card payment providers in the world, operating in more than 46 countries and accepting payment in different currencies. This integrated Stripe hub, which the mediator connects by linking their own Stripe API, lets them manage payments inside ZODR so they can see which parties to a mediation have paid, and who is still outstanding. For the parties, the Stripe integration lets mediators send invoices to parties right from ZODR.

Below is a quick demonstration of the ZODR payments integration starting at the 12:12 minute mark:

An Online Mediator’s Payments Wishlist

As previously published to the LMIPodcast, a goal when designing ZODR, was to reimagine ZOOM as if it was being created for mediators from the ground up. This includes imagining what an integrated payment system should look like to address mediators’ concerns about getting paid. Below are some ideas that an ideal payments and collections hub inside an ODR platform should contain. These ideas may be developed inside ZODR one day, but would first require further evaluation.

1. intuitive “nudges”: the ODR platform is designed to intelligently remind parties of their obligations, taking the mediator out of the “debt collector” role so they can remain a neutral peacemaker.
2. a “countdown” clock: the actual Zoom meeting itself would contain a visible countdown clock (and “countup” clock for overtime) to keep all participants aware of the time their mediation is “costing.” This could be hidden and turned on strategically at specific phases of the mediation, such as with “1 hour left,” or when overtime begins. This would have the impact of giving value to the mediators’ time by visibly showcasing the time in which mediation work is being fulfilled. 
3. time-tracker: the mediator, especially those working hourly, would have a notes section where he or she can track events in order to document for the parties the basis for additional fees. This would be helpful for capturing activities performed outside the actual session.