Stacy Lee Burns, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California Sarah Burns received her B.A. in Sociology from UCLA where she graduated Summa Cum Laude and with Departmental Honors. She then obtained a Master's degree from the UCLA Sociology Department and a Juris Doctorate from Yale Law School, USA. After graduating from law school, Dr. Burns became an attorney in California and practiced plaintiff's tort law for several years. She then completed her Ph.D in the UCLA Sociology Department.

• Contents: Introduction to the work of judge-mediators; Historical developments in court settlement work and the rise of JAMS: a description and comparison of the public and private settings; Money damage mediation: large and small; The initial joint session and the private conference system; Recurrent obstacles to settlement and routine devices for overcoming them; Talking money: mediating bilateral solutions in the face of unilateral bargainers; Substantive professional competency: legally-grounded and case-specific concession-seeking; Conclusion; Methodological appendix; References.