§ 154.023.Mediation

The most used procedure in the chapter, defined in three short subsections.

The mediator facilitates communication between the parties. That is the whole of the role as the statute describes it.

Three goals are named: reconciliation, settlement, or understanding among the parties. Settlement is one of them, not the only one.

The mediator must be impartial. The word appears in the definition itself, and Section 154.053 turns it into enforceable duties.

The mediator may not impose his own judgment on the issues for that of the parties. A mediator has no power to decide anything.

That prohibition is what separates mediation from every adjudicative procedure. A mini-trial or a summary jury trial produces an opinion about who should win; a mediation produces whatever the parties agree to.

Victim-offender mediation is included. Subsection (c) brings in the program the Texas Department of Criminal Justice conducts under the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Confidentiality is what makes it work, and it comes from Section 154.053(b) and (c) and Section 154.073.

Reconciliation and understanding are listed alongside settlement, which matters in family cases where the parties will keep dealing with each other after the file closes.

The mediator has no power to decide, and no power to report. Section 154.053 shuts the appointing court out of what happened, so the process is neither adjudicative nor supervised.