About Billivan Johnson
New Jersey Rule 1:40 Qualified Mediator · Former FBI Special Agent · NJAPM Member
Thirty-four years of reading people under pressure.
Meet Billivan Johnson, a trained and qualified (NJAPM) professional mediator and a former FBI Special Agent who helps individuals and businesses resolve disputes through impartial mediation.
About Billivan Johnson, Qualified NJ Rule 1:40 Mediator
Thirty-four years of reading people under pressure — now put to work resolving your dispute. Before Billivan Johnson became a professional mediator, he spent 26 years as an FBI Special Agent, working complex criminal and counterterrorism investigations.
That career didn't just teach him how to build a case. It taught him how to sit across from people in the highest-tension moments of their lives, listen for what wasn't being said, and bring a room back down from the edge. Those are exactly the skills a good mediator needs.
From Federal Investigations to the Mediation Table
In the FBI, Billivan learned to listen for the interests, anxieties, and quiet needs beneath whatever someone was actually saying — because people rarely just say "I want respect" or "I want to feel safe." They say "I want money," and it takes real skill to hear what's underneath. He learned to de-escalate volatile, high-stakes scenes without reacting too fast — keeping his tone steady and his pace even, so the pressure drops and clear thinking returns.
Perhaps most importantly, investigative work demanded absolute impartiality. Agents are trained to follow the facts regardless of personal feelings — and that same discipline lets Billivan sit with any party, on either side of a dispute, and facilitate the process fairly.
After retiring as a Special Agent, Billivan spent eight more years as a Special Investigator conducting background investigations for top-secret security clearances for the FBI and the U.S. Department of State — sharpening how he distills complicated facts, checks credibility, and stays neutral under pressure. Long before that, his first professional base was as a paralegal in the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office, where he learned to navigate high-stakes disagreements and the judicial system with clarity and calm composure.
Billivan has completed the 40-hour civil mediation training required by the State of New Jersey (Rule 1:40 civil mediation) to be listed on the New Jersey Civil Court roster. He is a qualified Rule 1:40 civil mediator, a member of the New Jersey Association of Professional Mediators, and a member of the Association for Conflict Resolution.
Our Approach — the 4 Es
Billivan is guided by what he calls the 4 Es: Empowerment, Empathy, Encouragement, and Engagement.
In practice, that means:
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He is neutral and does not take sides.
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He facilitates communication, understanding, and negotiation between both parties.
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He is not an attorney and does not provide legal advice to either party.
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His goal is to help you negotiate, communicate, and craft your own agreement — not to impose a decision on you.
Every session is built around one core belief: people are far more likely to honor an agreement they helped create than one handed down by a judge or arbitrator.
Why Mediation
After decades spent inside highconflict, high-stakes situations, Billivan saw firsthand how rarely a courtroom actually resolves the underlying problem between two people or two businesses. A judge can decide who wins on paper, but that verdict often leaves both sides worse off — drained financially, emotionally exhausted, and no longer on speaking terms.
Mediation offered something different: a process where the people closest to the conflict get to shape the outcome themselves, with an experienced, neutral guide helping them get there. That's the work Billivan does today, and it's the reason The Right Path Mediation Service exists.
