Q: Could you tell us about your professional background—your areas of practice, how you first became involved in mediation/EDR, and moments or accomplishments you’re most proud of?
I began my career as a commercial litigator in 1993 and, over the next twenty-five years, represented both plaintiffs and defendants in high-stakes disputes involving construction defects, insurance coverage and bad faith, professional malpractice, breach of contract, admiralty, and general business litigation. I practiced at firms ranging from boutique trial shops to large national platforms like Seyfarth Shaw and Adams & Reese before co-founding Hawash Cicack & Gaston.
In 2018, I founded Hawash Houston Mediation and shifted my practice to mediation, arbitration, and early dispute resolution. Since then, I have mediated more than 750 cases across construction, insurance, professional malpractice, business disputes, and more.
I also helped draft the Early Dispute Resolution Guidelines and now serve as a Trustee of the EDR Institute. In addition, I serve as Chair of the ADR Section of the Houston Bar Association, sit on the board of the Texas Mediator Credentialing Association, and am a member of the National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals.
Teaching is another important part of my professional life. As an adjunct professor at the University of Houston Law Center, I teach legal negotiation, mediation advocacy, and EDR. That work is meaningful to me, both because it helps train the next generation of lawyers and because it continues to sharpen my own approach as a neutral.
Q: What motivated you to pursue mediation/EDR, and were there personal influences or professional experiences that shaped your path to joining the AAA?
Litigation taught me to mediate. After years in the courtroom, I saw that many cases settled after months or even years of discovery, motion practice, conflict, and unnecessary cost, often on terms that were available much earlier.
Having represented both plaintiffs and defendants, I developed a practical understanding of how each side sees its case, where the blind spots are, and where resolution is usually found. Over time, I realized that perspective was most valuable at the center of a dispute, when I serve as an arbitrator or mediator, rather than on either side of it.
The EDR movement brought that conviction into focus. Working with the early architects of the EDR Institute reinforced my belief that the traditional model of litigate first and mediate later is broken for a large category of disputes. The idea that parties can resolve disputes fairly and economically within thirty days, before litigation fully begins, aligned with everything my career had taught me and gave my work a deeper sense of purpose.
Joining the AAA was a natural extension of that path. Its commitment to structured, professional dispute resolution reflects how I approach the work, and being accepted to both the arbitration and mediation panels was a milestone I value deeply.
If I had to distill the path into a single insight, it would be this: I did not leave litigation behind. I brought everything it taught me into a role where I could use it differently. The shift from zealous advocate to zealous problem-solver was not a departure. It was the career finally making sense.
Q: What do you value most about serving as a mediator/EDR specialist with the AAA, and what aspects of the work do you find most meaningful for the parties you serve?
What I value most is the moment a party realizes they have agency over the outcome. In litigation, control is often more illusion than reality. A judge controls the docket. A jury controls the verdict. Opposing counsel can shape the pace and tone of the fight. Clients spend years and fortunes navigating a system that ultimately asks twelve strangers to decide their fate. Mediation gives some of that power back. When parties begin to see that clearly, something shifts. They stop performing for a judge and start working toward a resolution.
Q: How has your previous experience as an attorney, arbitrator, judge, or in another professional role shaped your approach to mediation?
My litigation career taught me to respect the people on both sides of a dispute. I have represented plaintiffs who were genuinely wronged and defendants who were genuinely blameless. I have seen good lawyers make bad arguments and difficult facts produce fair outcomes. That experience inoculated me against the temptation every neutral faces: deciding who is right and then pushing the other side toward capitulation. That is not mediation. My role is to help both sides see the case as clearly as possible and make informed decisions for themselves. My litigation background gives me the tools to do that with credibility.
My arbitration experience adds another dimension. Serving as an arbitrator and deciding cases on the merits has given me an adjudicator’s perspective that pure advocates do not have. When I tell a party in mediation that a particular argument is unlikely to carry the day, I am speaking from experience, having weighed those arguments and made those decisions myself. Arbitration also reinforces the reality of finality. Parties do not get a do-over. A clear understanding of what an adverse ruling can mean sharpens my ability to help parties assess the real risks of walking away from a potential settlement.
Q: How do you approach the mediation/EDR process, and what strategies do you use to help parties move from conflict toward resolution?
Every successful mediation starts with preparation: reviewing key documents, pleadings, and expert reports, and speaking with counsel to identify the real obstacles to resolution, which are often practical as much as legal. During the mediation itself, I listen first. Once I have a clear understanding of the case, I help the parties assess risk by looking at liability and damages in terms of probabilities rather than certainties. Many litigants think in binary terms: win or lose. In reality, every case turns on a series of questions, and the answers to those questions determine its risk-adjusted value. When parties begin to see the case through that lens, the gap almost always narrows.
I am direct about weaknesses, but never combative. My goal is to encourage genuine self-assessment, not defensiveness. And when impasse arises, I focus first on diagnosing the cause before deciding which tool will best help the parties move forward.
Q: Without breaching confidentiality, can you share a moment or case in your mediation/EDR work that was especially rewarding or that highlighted the strengths of the profession?
I don’t have a single case that stands out because, truthfully, I feel rewarded every time a case settles. The sense of momentum and satisfaction I feel when parties reach resolution in mediation is not unlike what I felt as a litigator when a jury returned a favorable verdict. Of course, a mediator has no stake in the outcome. The satisfaction is not about winning. It comes from watching parties who walked in entrenched leave with certainty, closure, and control over their own result. After more than seven hundred mediations, that feeling has not faded.
Q: What advice would you give to advocates or parties preparing for mediation/EDR—whether in terms of mindset, process, or practical preparation?
For parties specifically, I'd say this: come prepared to listen, not just to be heard. You'll have every opportunity to present your case. But mediation only works if you're genuinely willing to consider the possibility that the other side has a point, or at least that a jury, judge, or arbitrator might see it that way. You don't have to agree with the other side's position. However, you do have to be honest with yourself about the risk that someone else might.
Q: Have you noticed any trends or shifts in the use of mediation/EDR, the types of disputes, or in parties’ expectations in recent years?
The biggest shift I've seen is that early dispute resolution is no longer a fringe idea, it’s steadily becoming an expectation. When I first started talking about EDR, the response from most litigators was polite skepticism. The prevailing mindset was that meaningful case evaluation required discovery, and that real settlement pressure came only after months or years of litigation. That's changing. More lawyers, more clients, and increasingly more judges recognize that a significant percentage of disputes can be evaluated and resolved early, within weeks, not years. The EDR Institute's work has been drive that shift, but so has a simpler economic reality that litigation costs have become unsustainable for many businesses.
Q: Which skills or qualities do you believe are most essential for a successful mediator/EDR specialist, and how have you cultivated them?
Emotional intelligence may be the most undervalued skill in the field. Commercial mediation has a reputation for being purely analytical, i.e., just run the numbers and find the zone. That view is incomplete. Behind every commercial dispute are human beings making decisions influenced by fear, pride, anger, loyalty, exhaustion, and a dozen other factors that never appear in a mediation statement. Reading the room and knowing when a party's refusal to move is strategic or emotional, and whether someone needs to feel heard before they can hear anything in return. This is what allows the analytical tools I use to actually work.
Q: Outside of your professional work, what activities, causes, or passions are important to you?
Teaching. That is the answer that comes without hesitation. My work as an adjunct professor at the University of Houston Law Center isn't something I do on the side; it's central to who I am professionally and personally. There's a particular satisfaction in watching a law student grasp for the first time that effective advocacy isn't about winning arguments but about solving problems. When a former student comes back a year or two after graduation and tells me they used a risk-analysis decision tree from my class to evaluate a case or that they approached a negotiation differently because of something we discussed, that's as gratifying as any mediation settlement. The classroom keeps me sharp, keeps me honest, and reminds me why this work matters beyond any individual case.
Resume
To learn more about Michael Hawash’s professional background, view his resume.
You can search the panelists in Mediator Search to find the links to their resumes.