While few would argue that it is almost always best for mediators to be impartial as a matter of practice, including such a requirement into a uniform law drew considerable controversy. Some mediators, reflecting a deeply and sincerely felt value within the mediation community that a mediator not be predisposed to favor or disfavor parties in dispute, persistently urged the Drafters to enshrine this value in the Act; for these, the failure to include the notion of impartiality in the Act would be a distortion of the mediation process. Other mediators, service providers, judges, mediation scholars, however, urged the Drafters not to include the term "impartiality" for a variety of reasons.

At least three are worth stressing. One pressing concern was that including such a statutory requirement would subject mediators to an unwarranted exposure to civil lawsuits by disgruntled parties. In this regard, mediators with a more evaluative style expressed concerns that the common practice of so-called "reality checking" would be used as a basis for such actions against the mediator. A second major concern was over the workability of such a statutory requirement. Scholarly research in cognitive psychology has confirmed many hidden but common biases that affect judgment, such as attributional distortions of judgment and inclinations that are the product of social learning and professional culturation. See generally, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, Choices, Values, and Frames (2000); Scott Plous, The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making (1993). Similarly, mediators in certain contexts sometimes have an ethical or felt duty to advocate on behalf of a party, such as long-term care ombuds in the health care context. Third, some parties seek to use a mediator who has a duty to be partial in some respects--such as a domestic mediator who is charged by law to protect the interests of the children. It has been argued that such mediations should still be privileged.

For these and other reasons, the Drafting Committees determined that impartiality, like qualifications, was an issue that was important but that did not need to be included in a uniform law. Rather, out of regard for the gravity of the issue, the Drafting Committees determined that it was enough to flag the issue for states to consider at a more local level, and to provide model