Profile: Steve Kruis (The Gently Persistent Mediator)
By Greg Halsey, Bender's California Labor & Employment Bulletin, Vol. 2008, No. 8, August 2008, pp.313-314.
Gently persistent. Calmly relentless. These two mottos accurately portray Steve Kruis of Kruis Mediation in San Diego. As a fifteen year veteran mediator, Mr. Kruis has molded his expansive work experience and passion for psychology into a successful and progressive mediation practice.
From early childhood, Mr. Kruis began flexing his talent for mediation and interest in the legal profession. As the oldest of four brothers, Mr. Kruis would often be thrown in the middle of a brotherly quarrel, which is how he discovered his innate talent for mediation. "It is just who I am," he says. "It's the way I have always been." When Mr. Kruis was ten years old, he befriended a court clerk on his paper route who allowed him to attend a courtroom session. The experience left such an impression upon young Mr. Kruis that he made a decision then and there: He would become an attorney.
Mr. Kruis's educational experience represents his well-rounded character. Despite entering the University of Notre Dame as an undergraduate with a passion to become a lawyer, he passed up the typical pre-law majors and chose to major in the General Program of Liberal Studies, with "the greatest books in western civilization" as its reading list. In addition to his expansive major, Mr. Kruis took as many psychology classes as his schedule would permit. His fascination with psychology and neuroscience still remains, and he voraciously reads books about how the brain works. After college, he attended the Notre Dame Law School and spent his second year in London under a full scholarship studying the origins of English common law. This diverse educational background and deep understanding of psychology greatly influence and contribute to his unique mediation style.
After law school, Mr. Kruis worked as a county prosecutor in Indiana for three years, where he received extensive trial experience. But in 1983, he and his wife Katherine, who is also an attorney, decided to move to San Diego because of the weather. In San Diego, Mr. Kruis developed a diverse legal career. For thirteen years, he practiced at Higgs, Fletcher & Mack, a San Diego full-service firm. Mr. Kruis practiced real estate, personal injury and employment law, and served as the firm's managing partner for three years.
While working at Higgs Fletcher, Mr. Kruis was involved in several mediations, and eventually decided to pursue his initial curiosity in the practice. In 1992, he took mediation training, and on March 22, 1993, while conducting his first mediation, he "was bitten by the bug." From that point, Mr. Kruis gradually integrated his skills as a mediator into his practice. He served as a pro bono mediator for the California Superior Court, was a founding member of the Mediation Committee at the San Diego Association of Realtors, and in 1995, became a paid mediator. By 2000, Mr. Kruis had devoted himself fully to mediation.
Mr. Kruis' effective mediation style incorporates his understanding of the human thought-process with his innate ability to welcome and foster discussion. He explains that on the spectrum of mediators, he is in the middle. "At one end of the spectrum is the facilitative mediator, and at the other is the aggressive mediator." The facilitative mediator takes a passive role in the discussions and does not express any opinions. On the other hand, the aggressive mediator strong-arms the parties and plays a very active role.
Mr. Kruis borrows elements from both extremes. He pays attention to feelings and emotions, and empathizes with both parties, but he is realistic and not afraid to express neutral impressions. By incorporating elements from both ends of the spectrum, he utilizes the best of both worlds. Each party gets the opportunity to be fully heard, but Mr. Kruis keeps their expectations of the case grounded in rational and neutral analysis. He accomplishes this by personally sitting down with each party and hearing their story before holding a joint session. In doing so, he incorporates the cathartic effect on an emotionally-charged party of speaking to a neutral listener. "The most important aspect of mediation is that people get an opportunity to be heard." Since litigation does not provide a proper forum to vent frustration, mediation allows a frustrated party to speak directly to both a neutral listener and the opposing party, which often helps individuals move past emotional roadblocks that impede settlement. Honing in on his psychological studies, Mr. Kruis is keenly aware of the emotional elements in a case. "A good mediator needs to understand and be reading the emotional aspect of the case, because it is a very big part of our decision-making process." Once an individual's emotions are sifted through and neutralized, the ability to rationalize and cooperate with an opposing party becomes much more likely, which is beneficial to both parties.
One of the traits that make Mr. Kruis an effective and progressive mediator is his understanding of reality and human perception. Influenced by Jacob Bronowski, a mathematician who devoted himself to understanding the nature of violence, Mr. Kruis understands that people and society can do some very evil things when "we believe that there is our truth and no other truth." Therefore, Mr. Kruis enters mediation knowing that there rarely exists one truth to a matter. How each person perceives reality is unique, and two people can see the same thing but have positions that may be diametrically opposed. According to Mr. Kruis, the key to resolving such disputes is to "respect people's views or beliefs" but stress, at the same time, that "although [one party] may be right, the decision-maker may think otherwise and that is the risk that [each party] must be aware of and can't control." By approaching mediation in this manner, he takes the personal element out of the equation and grounds the dispute in a more rational, but respectful, environment. Additionally, Mr. Kruis works to harness the motivating power associated with cooperative efforts. Whereas negative reactions and emotions can be exacerbated in the adversarial atmosphere of litigation, Mr. Kruis organizes his mediation around a reciprocal, positive environment, where each side rewards the other side by making steps towards resolution. In a gently persistent manner, he will subtly urge opposing parties to give where the other gave.
Mr. Kruis recognizes and appreciates the positive effects his mediations have upon cases, but stresses the patience and energy it takes to mediate a dispute. "Being a mediator is like a fireman: you get in, you put the fire out, and you go home." Unlike litigation, where an attorney is always an advocate and always responsible for their clients, a mediator resolves issues quickly and definitively. However, mediation requires a great deal of patience and energy because it consistently involves emotionally-charged individuals who are often very difficult to deal with. Nonetheless, at the end of the day, Mr. Kruis enjoys his work, because it is grounded in making relationships. "As a neutral, I am able to develop more relationships and get to know the unique people in our profession, and that's the fun part."
* Greg Halsey is a summer associate at the labor and employment law firm of Paul, Plevin, Sullivan & Connaughton in San Diego.