Top 10 FAQs

First Class Mediation’s Top 10 Frequently Asked Questions

1.  Do I need to be a lawyer? No!  Some of the best mediators have not opened a law book in anger and come from a wide variety of professions or the community.  You need only to be able to listen, to ask perceptive questions, to have enthusiasm and interest, and to want to help others without judging or advising.  Lawyers can make very good mediators but usually more than 50% of people we select are not legally trained.

2.  Do I need to learn law – or will you teach it? There is a very limited amount of legal knowledge that you will find useful and we will deal with it during the course.  Because you are not advising, you will not need to learn the law – as you will discover on your FCM training course.

3.  Does the course meet CMC (Civil Mediation Council) approved standards?  Yes, of course. First Class Mediation currently provides training through the prestigious London School of Mediation which runs it's courses to meet CMC accreditation standards. In fact, we believe that the course sets the standard for UK training and beyond. 

4.  What qualification will I get? If you pass the examination and assessment, then you will be a certified mediator. Normally what then follows is a period during which you seek agreement from established mediators to observe them working to complete your accreditation. This process requires you to complete three observations of actual mediaitons, and experience shows that would-be mediators often have difficulty at this stage securing their observations. For this reason, First Class Mediation has introduced the revolutionary concept of Observation Training Days. For our first intake Observation Days are set for the end of January, following which FCM officially launches itself to a waiting public.

5. How will I secure mediation work? As an accredited mediator there are various mediation panels one can join, but what makes First Class Mediation different is that we will also bring work to you because we utilise world-class technology to secure enquiries from internet searches. You will also be mentored by a world-renowned mediator to build your practice and we will give you expert guidance on exactly the right steps to take in your Operations Manual and Practice Toolkit. FCM is with you for the long term (and in fact we only make money when you are successful – so we want to make sure you are because we have a vested interest in helping you to be as successful as you can be). 

6.  Do you offer discounts? No – The FCM franchise cost is set at the lowest possible level already as a special deal for early adopters. You will be able to confirm, with a quick glance on the internet, that you can easily pay £4,000 just for a CMC approved training course, without any sort of follow up, or the world-class support, structure, hard and soft systems, marketing, mentoring and everything else the FCM franchise offers you. Not only do we believe our training is without parallel, but we also add a vast amount to the training to ensure not only that you become the best mediator you can be, but also the most successful one too. We have a stake in your success – and also uniquely we guarantee it too. You cannot get anything else like the FCM franchise, anywhere at any price.

7. Will the franchise increase in cost? Yes it will. Obviously some people will think that selling a genuine six figure business for just £6,997 sounds too good to be true – especially when you consider the opportunity, training, mentoring, business pack, FCM iPad, websites, social media systems, world class lead generation and everything else that is included. The early adoption price has a singular aim which is to make it easy for us to fill our first quota of 120 mediators by January 2013 because we want to have a level of “critical mass” when we launch to the public. We therefore have very good reasons for doing this and initial pricing strategy for early adopters is part of it.  (If you need to know more about our launch strategy, we can discuss these matters with you but only under a strict non-disclosure agreement and only if you are successful at interview and are invited to become an FCM mediator.) Put simply, this initial offering price of £6,997 is clearly below cost and of course it will rise significantly very soon, most likely well before our public launch in January 2013.

8.  How much will I earn? As a mediator, your earning potential has never been better than with First Class Mediation.  The CEDR Audit offers some guidance regarding typical income of mediators generally – but none of these mediators have access to the same levels of world class mentoring and practice building systems and lead generation that you do as a First Class Mediator. CEDR says typically after around 10 mediations a mediator should be able to charge between £750 and £2,500 per day and they say if your marketing is right, and you join the right panels you could expect to deal with 10 to 50 cases a year. So you can do the maths for the typical mediator yourself. We expect an FCM mediator to have a huge and significant market (and income) advantage – although we make no specific income guarantees and the adage that hard work creates reward is as true with FCM as it is in every walk of life.

8.  Just how good is the First Class Mediation training? Modesty forbids…but the feedback is remarkable! We chose London School of Mediation because of its undoubted world-class reputation and because of the resounding success of its mediation graduates. We have worked very hard with LSM to deliver a course that tops even their sky-high bench-mark, with very important additional features – and notably the FCM Observation Days. LSM have trained around 1,000 mediators to their exacting standard – and their courses have achieved an average feedback score of 9.2 / 10 consistently over the last 10 years.  The most recent course, undertaken by QCs, business folk, an overseas government minister, lawyers, teachers, and a saddler offered an average mark of 9.3 out of 10 which, you’ll agree is extra-ordinary feedback.  Naturally, the Bar Council and SRA (for Solicitors) accredit the course with full CPD.  The course is run internationally several times a year to great acclaim and because of all of this we believe – and we’re entitled to believe – the training we’re delivering to you is simply world class. In fact we’d go so far as to say we believe the training (and indeed the First Class Mediation opportunity) is unrivalled anywhere in the world.

9.  You say my trainers and mentors have international experience and renown? Yes they do. They are some of the most recognised international icons of the mediation world – which is why we are so proud to have them as an integral part of FCM. Apart from training and mediating in the very highest profile cases in the UK, we can name Ireland, India, the Carribbean, and New Zealand as recent destinations along with Dubai, Singapore and France. On the LSM website you can see international feedback such as a letter from the Indian Minister of Justice in September 2010 in respect of work undertaken by LSM.

10.  When can I start? The best time for you to start is TODAY. The first course begins on 13^th August, 2012 and there will only be 5 more between then and January 2013. There were only 120 places in total at the beginning and many have already gone – so if you want to become an FCM mediator – Contact Us Now...