There’s a dearth of affordable, well-designed, comprehensive case management software built for mediators. So when I hear of one on the market, my interest is immediately piqued.

Enter InterMediate. While new in the U.S., InterMediate has been on the market for three years in the U.K., home to its developer, Colin MacGregor of Resolute Systems. Colin’s adapted the software and its terminology to fit the U.S. market and he’s been testing it with a mediation program in Maryland.

Colin contacted me to see if I’d be interested in giving the software a test-run and writing a review about it, unfiltered by him. Here’s what I found.

Features

Colin’s clearly spent a good deal of time learning about ADR case management and working with mediators to build this system. Though not remotely a complete features list, here are some of the tasks InterMediate does with ease:

• Case assignments
• Case notes
• Correspondence
• Scheduling
• Referrer tracking
• Case progress tracking
• Case outcome reporting
• Customizable templates for standard documents
• Invoicing and fee management
• Mediator performance evaluation
• Financial and other reporting – almost 50 standard reports plus additional ones upon request
• Emailing system for following up with parties and basic e-marketing
• Ability for mediators to log case notes home or separate offices

Pricing

InterMediate isn’t a piece of software you buy as an experiment because it’s got a fairly hefty fee compared with case management and client management software I’ve discussed here in the past. But the fee shouldn’t daunt you if you’ve got needs those other pieces of software don’t handle for you, because, frankly, when your practice is thriving, you’ll rely heavily on your case management software to keep you sane and professional.

A single-user system is $1,000 USD and includes FileMaker Pro. There’s also a monthly subscription fee (my recollection is that it was about $60) covering full support, change requests, report customization, backup management, and software updates.

Colin spent time on the phone with me to walk me through the installation and setup, then through the system and features. I can easily see from his patience and manner that his customer support would be top-notch.

User interface

InterMediate is built using FileMaker Pro, so if you’re already familiar with FileMaker, a well-respected and long-on-the-market product, you’ll find InterMediate pretty easy to learn. If you’re unfamiliar with FileMaker, your learning time is likely to be a number of hours because the software is so feature-rich.

Like the pricing, that shouldn’t daunt you because time devoted on the front end is likely to save you time and a few gray hairs later. And InterMediate is pretty straightforward to use once you understand its logic.

Best uses of InterMediate

I suspect some solo mediators will find InterMediate more powerful than they need to manage clients and cases. But I can see three types of mediation offices that could benefit significantly from this software if their present system doesn’t measure up:

1. Mediation offices or centers with multiple mediators, such as community mediation services and community justice programs. InterMediate was first designed with just such a setup in mind.
2. Small or solo-practice mediation offices with thriving client loads and needing a trustworthy, reliable system to keep everything well organized.
3. Any mediation office that wants a single, comprehensive software package to do all the client- and case-management tasks.

Bottom line
InterMediate’s a fine piece of software for mediators who want a comprehensive case management system and are tired of cobbled-together systems or of adapting to systems built for other purposes, such as legal case management.

Find out more about InterMediate at the Resolute Systems website.

Making Mediation Your Day Job by Tammy Lenski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Based on a work at MakingMediationYourDayJob.Lenski.com.