Ms Barnes started her legal career in private practice, working at a top-tier firm before moving in-house and getting to sit at the mediation table as a client.

“It’s in that role that I really started to witness things in mediation that I was struggling with as a client. Mostly that I wasn’t being heard; I was being ignored by a lot of the mediators who were around at the time, who weren’t career mediators, but people that were retiring into that role.

“And after a couple of years of doing that, I actually had the experience of having a female mediator in Adelaide, a very senior QC. And I realised I’d never had a female mediator before, which actually caught me by surprise because that’s the kind of thing I should have noticed. So having thought about that and starting to talk to the lawyers around me at the time on a national front, who were working for the insurance company I worked for, they were confirming their same experience. They were not coming across any female mediators and also hadn’t thought about it,” she said.

“So, I decided there was a gap in the market, that there must be other clients out there who were frustrated like I was. That our seat at the table wasn’t actually being taken seriously. A lot of legally qualified people in those in-house roles who can contribute to the conversation. So, I did my mediation course, and eight years ago, [I] launched my mediation business.”

Within the personal injuries and commercial work Ms Barnes was doing, her solicitors at the time weren’t putting forward any female mediators — but she said that female mediators are now becoming more common.

“For probably about the first three years of my practice, all of my clients, I was the first female mediator that ever had. And so that was a bit of an interesting experience for everyone. I think certainly now, eight years in, there are a number of female mediators in the Victorian jurisdiction. I know plenty of female mediators in Sydney and Brisbane also; I’m quite familiar with those markets,” she explained.

“So, it is growing; mediators are becoming more of a profession as opposed to a retirement plan, which makes me really happy. It’s such a different skill set [from] that of being an advocate. And it makes sense that that be a full-time role as opposed to an add-on to an existing practice.”

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Having been at every seat on the mediation table, Ms Barnes said it was “eye-opening” to see how different positions had different levels of stress.

“As an advisor, you’re thinking on your feet, you’re really in that advocating role, you’re trying to advise your client and make sure you’re covering yourself as well as assisting your client. But as a client, you have this responsibility as a decision-maker. In mediation, the client’s the decision-maker; they’re the ones who are making the call, whether I put another offer in, whether I walk away.

“And in terms of corporates and insurance companies, they then have to go back to the office and explain to people who aren’t lawyers why they’ve taken the decision that they have. And that’s a really different stress in mediation, which is why I’ve found, as a mediator, it’s been really empowering for me to understand why certain people might behave in particular ways in a mediation, because they’re acting under quite a lot of stress,” she quipped.

“So, it really motivates me to de-escalate the conflict, to get everyone talking. Not everyone likes stepping into conflict. Some people are conflict avoiders, some people are conflict attractors. And those of us who choose mediation as a pathway, I would say almost 100 per cent of the time, are people who are comfortable in conflict.”

Mediators, like legal professionals, are also typically type-A personalities — but Ms Barnes said this hadn’t been a barrier for her at all.

“We’re naturally driven. We probably have quite a few elements of perfectionism in there. [But] I don’t think that’s a barrier to being successful in negotiations and mediations. Really, the key is rapport building. And we have more alike across the table at a mediation than we are unalike, particularly if you’ve got lawyers on both sides. Even if you’re used to being quite combative and competitive, they used to always say mediation is win-win,” she added.

“It’s a bit old-fashioned, but we’re trying to find something that when we wake up tomorrow morning, the outcome we’ve chosen for ourselves with autonomy at the mediation is better than what we would otherwise do the following day. And I think most of the time that’s what we’re achieving in mediation.”

The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Emily Barnes, click below: