By Francine Friedman Griesing, Esq.
Transitioning to Third-Party Neutral
After years of high pressure practice, you are not ready to retire but seek a change. You may have enough stressful demands or are burned out seeking greater flexibility and less pressure. As a law firm partner, the cycle of cultivating clients and billing time has taken a toll. As corporate counsel, the rigors of juggling more with reduced resources may keep you up at night. After serving on the bench, you may want to leave the laser of public scrutiny but continue applying your skills professionally. For those who spent their career representing clients in litigation, managing disputes in house, or overseeing a caseload on the bench, one alternative is serving as an arbitrator or mediator. Thinking your experience will translate readily does not mean it is the right fit. Serving as a third-party neutral calls on attributes distinct from those of a successful litigator, in house counsel, or judge. Dispute resolution requires entrepreneurship, neutrality, and patience. Engagement as an arbitrator or mediation can be rewarding, but it may not be the path to avoid stress or burnout. Suitability depends on whether you find the demands of dispute resolution exhilarating or depleting.
The Prevalence of Lawyer Stress and Burnout
Stress, mental health issues, and burnout are prevalent in the legal profession. In August 2026, the American Bar Association (ABA) Commission on Women in the Profession released “Mental Wellness in the Legal Profession: The Unique Challenges of Women Lawyers and a Path Forward.” The study considered how workplace experience of men and women affected mental health, stress, and self-care. The findings, based on nearly 3,000 respondents, are alarming. There are significant gender disparities in stress levels. Women reported being overwhelmed by billable hours, workplace culture, gender bias, and work-life conflict, particularly the “motherhood penalty.” Women attribute mental health issues to organizational and professional expectations, rather than to their personal fortitude. Men are not immune from the detrimental impact of work demands. However, men reported lower rates of professional stress and mental health consequences.
In September 2026, the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs, in collaboration with Krill Strategies, released a study on lawyer mental health and burnout. “When Demands Equal Distress: An Updated Understanding of Lawyer Mental Health and Well-being” reported results of surveying about 37,000 actively licensed lawyers. The results are similarly troubling. Over 80% of respondents reported it was either “very important” (52.2%) or “important” (29%) to reduce our mental health and substance abuse issues. Respondents felt lawyering was harmful to their mental health (41%), they encountered other lawyers in the past year whose well-being raised fitness to practice concerns (31%), and they considered leaving law due to mental health, burnout or stress (27%). Respondents attributed mental health problems, substance abuse, stress, depression, anxiety, and burnout to extreme hour demands rather than 40-hour workweek, work/family conflicting demands, litigation practice, and solo and private practice compared to in-house, judicial or academic positions.
Facing these dynamics, transitioning to becoming an arbitrator or mediator may seem like a panacea. If you seek to reduce stress or recover from burnout, pivoting to a neutral practice may not provide relief from challenges troubling you. When considering shifting to neutral practice, assess whether it will provide a haven from your existing role. Managing and deciding high stakes disputes as an arbitrator or facilitating a complex negotiated resolution as a mediator can be exhilarating, but neutral work also involves heavy lifting.
Entrepreneurship: Filling Your Calendar with Neutral Assignments
Launching neutral practice requires considerable time and effort. Even lawyers and judges experienced in handling disputes as advocates or decisionmakers, must earn a reputation as an effective impartial to attract engagements. For private practitioners seeking to stop business development, becoming an arbitrator or mediator will not end this pressure. Similarly, for judges, and in house counsel who have not had to attract and retain clients, establishing a practice can be a rude awakening. Merely announcing your new direction will not cause the phone to ring or your email to fill with invitations to serve. Sought after arbitrators and mediators devote considerable energy to networking, thought leadership, bar activities, and community involvement to enhance their reputation and garner referrals. This challenge can invigorate, but if the pursuit of engagements is anxiety provoking or otherwise distasteful, arbitration and mediation may not be the best fit for you.
Neutrality: Remaining Impartial with Stakeholders
If you are accustomed to advocating on behalf of clients, adapting to a neutral role may require adjustment. When you serve as an arbitrator or mediator you must remain impartial and disclose any relationship that could impact the perception of impartiality. The Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct, provide:
Rule 2.4. Lawyer Serving as Third-Party Neutral.
(a) A lawyer serves as a third-party neutral when the lawyer assists two or more persons who are not clients of the lawyer to reach a resolution of a dispute or other matter that has arisen between them. Service as a third-party neutral may include service as an arbitrator, a mediator or in such other capacity as will enable the lawyer to assist the parties to resolve the matter.
(b) A lawyer serving as a third-party neutral shall inform unrepresented parties that the lawyer is not representing them. When the lawyer knows or reasonably should know that a party does not understand the lawyer’s role in the matter, the lawyer shall explain the difference between the lawyer’s role as a third-party neutral and a lawyer’s role as one who represents a client.
Lawyers serving as third-party neutrals may also face additional constraints based on the forum in which they serve. Rule 2.4, Comment [2] notes:
… lawyers serving as third-party neutrals … may also be subject to various codes of ethics, such as the Code of Ethics for Arbitration in Commercial Disputes prepared by a joint committee of the American Bar Association and the American Arbitration Association or the Model Standards of Conduct for Mediators jointly prepared by the American Bar Association, the American Arbitration Association and the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution.
These sources of ethical responsibilities mandate lawyer neutrals disclose financial, personal, business or other relationships that create actual conflicts or perceived conflicts of interest. There is a duty to disclose before accepting engagement and it is ongoing for the duration of the engagement.
Rule 2.4 requires lawyer neutrals ensure unrepresented parties understand the parameters of the neutral’s role — the neutral is not their legal representative and cannot advise them.
For former judges, being an arbitrator making binding decisions on disputes will be familiar territory. In contrast, judges serving as private mediators may find parties and counsel do not exhibit the deference to which they are accustomed. Also, parties cannot pick their judge in court even if they do not like the judge’s record, but when selecting an arbitrator or mediator, judicial record is fair game for scrutiny. If reducing scrutiny is a factor in transitioning from judge to private neutral, having parties and lawyers delving into your record can be stressful.
Patience: Listening to All Perspectives Respectfully
If practicing long hours facing pressing deadlines is a source of professional stress or burnout, neutral work may provide respite from those demands. As an arbitrator you generally control when and how you manage the work. You can confine hearings to reasonable business hours with replenishing breaks. Working late hours, weekends and holidays is rarely necessary. However, as with litigation, sometimes arbitral parties have issues that require urgent intervention beyond the arbitrator’s control.
Mediation can be grueling for the neutral, often over extended hours. Moving between the parties to help them reach a mutually acceptable resolution is physically and mentally exhausting. Repeating this process day after day can take a toll comparable to high-stakes litigation, transactional practice or managing a trial.
In arbitration or mediation, you will face participants who are confrontational, irrational, angry, frustrated, hurt, or otherwise struggling. Dispute resolution is a demanding setting for stakeholders and their advocates. People lose control. The neutral is a shock absorber of others’ intolerance, disappointment, and impatience. Perseverance is essential. The effort to remain level-headed can be draining for neutrals just as advocacy is for counsel.
A safeguard to burnout is controlling the volume of neutral work. Once engaged, the arbitrator or mediator needs to maintain a calm temperament. This can be particularly challenging when unrepresented parties unfamiliar with the process are not agile presenting their case. A levelheaded neutral can minimize stress for themselves and participants in a dispute resolution process.
Launching Your Practice
If you are ready to pursue entrepreneurship, maintain neutrality, and demonstrate patience, often under pressure, becoming an arbitrator or mediator may be right for you. Pivoting to neutral practice can relieve stress or burnout of your current position while offering a challenging and rewarding career path. Feel free to contact me if you want to talk about how this could work for you. Good luck.
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As always, I welcome suggestions of topics you would like to read about in future columns.
Francine Griesing, Founder of Griesing Law, LLC, has been involved in every aspect of litigation and alternate dispute resolution over the past 40-plus years. She represented individual and institutional plaintiffs and defendants as an advocate in business litigation, employment, and alternate dispute resolution. With over 30 years of experience as a neutral, she now concentrates on dispute prevention and resolution. Fran is admitted to practice in Arizona, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah, and the United States Supreme Court. You can contact Fran at fgriesing@griesinglaw.com.
Reprinted with permission from the November 10, 2026 edition of the “Legal Intelligencer” © 2026 ALM Global Properties, LLC. All rights reserved. Further duplication without permission is prohibited, contact 877-256-2472 or asset-and-logo-licensing@alm.com.