Digital Mediation: Tips, Tricks, and Best Practices

Whether you are an experienced litigator or a new lawyer, all of us are working to become more proficient in our use of digital platforms within our legal practice. In this session on digital mediation, presenters will

• identify some of the challenges and benefits of mediating without an in-person presence; 
• offer recommendations for offsetting those challenges; 
• walk participants through the mechanics and components of a Zoom mediation session; and
• consider privacy and privilege issues that may be presented by the use of digital platform.
• discuss why digital mediation will continue to be a part of the practice of law, even after social distancing restrictions are lifted.

Steve Dalesio, Esquire 
Dalesio Law

Steve Dalesio maintains a legal practice devoted entirely to alternative dispute resolution through mediation, arbitration or consultation. After nearly thirty years as a litigator, and after trying over fifty cases to verdict in both West Virginia and Pennsylvania, Mr. Dalesio brings a wealth of experience and background to the mediation process. He has mediated or arbitrated over 5,000 cases to date in every type of civil claim including class actions, insurance bad faith, construction, employment, insurance coverage, medical malpractice, personal injury, product liability, auto and trucking, toxic tort, commercial claims, wrongful death, deliberate intent clams, coal/oil/gas leases and related claims, mining injuries, and taxation claims. He is a certified mediator in the State of West Virginia and a certified mediator, arbitrator and neutral evaluator in Pennsylvania. In addition to West Virginia and Pennsylvania, he has also mediated and arbitrated in Ohio, Maryland and Kentucky. Mr. Dalesio is a 1986 graduate of West Virginia University College of Law.

Professor William Rhee 
WVU College of Law

  Will Rhee is a Professor of Law at the West Virginia University College of Law, where he teaches Alternate Dispute Resolution, among others. In July 2013, Lawyers of Color magazine selected him as one of the “50 Most Influential Minority Law Professors 50 Years of Age or Younger.” He was named the 2020 WVU Law Professor of the Year by his students.  Professor Rhee’s scholarship focuses upon evidence-based policy in a deliberative democracy where both citizens and their government are expected to justify their laws with public reason. Professor Rhee’s scholarship is informed by his practice experience as an educational civil rights attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, a litigation associate for Debevoise & Plimpton, LLP, and a staff attorney for the National Juvenile Defender Center. Professor Rhee also has served as a U.S. Army infantry company commander and as a law clerk for Judge Sam J. Ervin, III on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.