One of the unique features of Legaler is the ability to host multiple meeting rooms at the same time, allowing you to securely conduct mediation and arbitration hearings virtually. Combining encrypted video and audio meetings with screen sharing, scheduling and collaboration tools like real-time chat and file-sharing, Legaler gives you everything you need to easily resolve disputes online.
Here’s how to launch your first mediation with Legaler:
Create Account (You Need One – Your Clients Do Not)
It’s free to sign up to Legaler for both lawyers and clients. The Starter plan includes full access to all the features you need, with no time limit on the duration of meetings.
Schedule Your Initial Sessions
Your clients don’t even need a Legaler account prior to their first meeting. You can simply enter their email addresses when scheduling a meeting. They will receive an invitation via email which will take them directly to the meeting in the browser. No sign up required!
Legaler offers flexibility when scheduling meetings to match your style of resolving disputes. One option is for parties to first meet together in a joint session, before being sent to separate breakout rooms. Alternatively, Legaler enables you to invite parties to separate breakout rooms from the outset, so the parties never truly meet.
When scheduling meetings, you have the option to send parties a fixed time or offer a selection of times, which parties can rank from most to least preferred. You can then finalize the time based on these preferences.
Once scheduled, you can also use the ‘Message Participants’ feature to start a group chat or direct message. This allows you to communicate securely to the parties before, during and after the meeting in either real-time, or asynchronously, throughout the entire mediation process.
Navigating Your Mediation or Arbitration
When you are ready to launch your mediation or arbitration, follow these simple steps:
- You can host sessions jointly or separately. Go to Meetings, where you will see all scheduling meetings in the Upcoming Meetings list. When you are ready, click ‘Start Meeting’.
- If you’ve elected to host all of parties in a joint session, they may now join the session.
- Once you are finished, you can choose to ‘End’ the session for all parties. They will not be able to re-enter this meeting room. Alternatively, you can choose to ‘Leave’ the room, which will keep the meeting running even without you. This is useful for running multiple breakout rooms with different parties, because you can rejoin them anytime. We will talk about this more below.
- Once the joint session has been ended, parties can then head to scheduled meetings with the separate parties in their respective breakout rooms. Alternatively, you can quickly set up breakout rooms using the ‘Meet Now’ function, discussed below.
‘Meet Now’ with Breakout Rooms
- Once parties are on the Legaler platform, you can use the ‘Meet Now’ feature to start a breakout room at any time. Simply select the participants you want to have in the meeting by name or email. When you are ready, click ‘Start’. This will call the parties, enabling them to join the meeting in one click. You can create as many breakout rooms as needed.
- All active meetings that you have created or are invited to will show up in your ‘Upcoming Meetings’ and will be labelled as ‘Live’ with a green flashing light indicating the meeting room is still open. Click ‘Back to Meeting’ at any time from the Meeting Details page to return to the meeting room.
- ‘Meet Now’ is also useful if you need to quickly re-call all parties to a joint session.
- Alternatively, as mentioned above, you can pre-schedule these breakout rooms. In that case, simply navigate to the meeting and press ‘Start Meeting’. You’ll be connected to the selected party straight away.
- Remember, you can ‘Leave’ breakout rooms so the parties can continue speaking among themselves in confidence.
Knock, Knock Before Entering Breakout Room
- To ensure you do not interrupt privileged conversations, Legaler has a built in chat function that acts as a ‘door knock’ function. Go to ‘Message’ and send a quick note asking if it is appropriate to enter the breakout room.
- Once confirmed that you may enter, click ‘Back to Meeting’ to rejoin the breakout room.
Ending a Mediation or Arbitration
Use the ‘Leave’ button to exit the breakout room but allow the parties to continue speaking. If you press ‘End’, everyone will be forced to leave the meeting. Use the ‘Back to Meeting’ button to rejoin the breakout room.
Finish the Case
After you’ve finished, press ‘End’ in all meetings. Follow-up settlement agreements can be sent via email or the Legaler platform.
