Spend a little time inside any mediators’ discussion group and it won’t be long before someone complains how hard it is to be a full-time mediator. Interestingly, they invariably externalize blame, attributing it primarily to two causes: (i) prospective clients don’t understand mediation; and (ii) access to cases is controlled by lawyers or the courts.

Yet neither is true — or at least, neither is the show-stopper these hand-wringers would have us believe. Mediation has become…