Spotlight: Mike Peacock
Wed, Dec 4th, 2024 | by Miles Mediation and Arbitration | Get to Know our Neutrals | Social Share
By Kelly K. James
Mike Peacock has had several careers before landing as a full-time mediator and part-time pastor. While at first glance they may seem disparate, he says they all share a common thread and provide a strong foundation for his mediation work.
Before Mike went to law school in his late 20s, he worked as a police officer. As a lawyer, he worked in private practice, at the public defender’s office, and as counsel for a police department. At the age of 50, he went to seminary (he’d felt called to do so since he was 12) and became an ordained minister; today, he mediates full-time and is a part-time pastor for the Bel-Mar Community at Palma Ceia Presbyterian Church in Tampa, Florida.
“Being a pastor and being a cop is the same thing — you’re the problem-solver; you’re called in times of crisis, you’re trying to get people to be reasonable,” he says. “The relationship skills I developed as a cop and providing pastoral care and that I use being a mediator are all the basic calling … you’re dealing with real people and dealing with problems.”
Mike first started mediating about 15 years ago when working in private practice, and then returned to work for the public defender’s office for 10 years. During COVID, his daughter, son-in-law and their two kids moved home for 18 months, and Mike ended up leaving the public defender’s office to help with his grandkids. “We had four adults working online and two kids doing online school, and one of us had to focus on the children,” Mike explains. He spent eight months of remote working, earned time and leave time as a stay-at-home grandparent and then decided to leave the public defender’s office to mediate full-time.
As an attorney, he handled large complex class actions, qui-tams, consumer fraud, product liability, employment and taxation cases as well as criminal cases, including capital murder as both a prosecutor and defense attorney. Mike has mediated cases including business, commercial, real property, contract, personal injury, and malicious prosecution. He is available to mediate cases in all areas to include family- and church-related conflicts.
He says that connecting with attorneys and parties is key to his success as a mediator. “I think relationships are everything in life — that would be my starting point,” he says. “They are everything in pastoral care and I feel the same way about mediation. I try to focus on it as I think it’s a key element… I’m not the ‘carry-the-numbers-back-and-forth’ guy. That’s not what you’re going to get if you get me. I’m going to talk to you and I’m going to be prepared.”
While he is a full-time mediator and part-time pastor, he says the best possible job is being Papa to his four grandkids — Hannah, 12, Emma 10, Charlie, 10, and Noah 8. “That’s the job that has the highest priority and the highest return and it’s the most important thing I do,” he says. “It’s important to be a good husband and father and brother and friend but nothing’s more important to me than that.”
Today, Mike is enjoying balancing his time as Papa with his work as a mediator — helping people solve their problems and find peace.
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