All cases involved only one mediation session, lasting about 75 minutes. The observers then conducted an immediate postsession interview with each disputant as well as follow- up telephone interviews between 4 and 8 months after mediation. Measures related to short-term success (reaching agreement, immediate satisfaction, and goal achievement), clarity and feasibility, long-term success (compliance, long- term quality of the relationship, and development of new problems), procedural justice, mediator and disputant behavior, and miscellaneous items (joint problem solving, mediator empathy, prior escalation, and mediator orientation). The absence of a correlation between short-term and long-term success indicated that agreements that achieved disputant goals were no more effective in the long run than those that did not. Furthermore, agreement clarity and feasibility did not predict long-term success. The results instead showed that the process of mediation is more critical to long-term success; joint problem solving, procedural justice, and no development of new problems were better predictors of success. 4 tables and 37 references