§ 154.052.Qualifications of Impartial Third Party

The qualifications section, and it is the standard the whole Texas mediation field is measured against.

Forty classroom hours of training in dispute resolution techniques is the baseline, in a course conducted by an alternative dispute resolution system or other organization approved by the appointing court.

Family cases require 64 hours in total. A person mediating a dispute relating to the parent-child relationship must complete the 40 hours plus 24 more in family dynamics, child development and family law.

Four of those hours must be family violence dynamics training, developed in consultation with a statewide family violence advocacy organization.

The family violence requirement is the most specific thing in the section. Mediation assumes parties can bargain with each other, and that assumption fails where one party is afraid of the other — the mediator has to be able to recognize it.

The court may appoint someone who meets neither standard. In appropriate circumstances a court may appoint a person on the basis of legal or other professional training or experience in particular dispute resolution processes.

That discretion is how a retired judge or a specialist engineer ends up appointed in a case where the subject matter is what counts.

These qualifications reach beyond this chapter. Section 155.003 applies them to attorneys serving as mediators during settlement weeks.