Arbitration & Mediation

Difference

Posted on March 30, 2010
I don't know. I'm thinking about it.

Inclusivity Begins with Opening Our Eyes and Ends when We Shut them Again

Posted on March 29, 2010
I've been talking a lot about gender bias this month (National Women's History Month because I need an excuse to do this).  It's opened my eyes so wide that all I really want to do in April is to shut them again!  But I've never let myself off the hook that easily even though some people are, well, irritated with me...

Improving Your Game to Get What You Want How You Want It

Posted on March 28, 2010
If you've been thinking, "but I'm just a mom" or "my job is ruled by pay scales" or "secretaries can't negotiate" -- think again! And register for the 4-week virtual learning and journaling course in the Craving Balance Learning Community...

Before Women Negotiate, We Need to Re-Think Our Economic Value

Posted on March 27, 2010
TRUE STORY: Lorrie is a working mother and a trial attorney with two children under five years of age. Though working part-time for a part-timer's salary, during the six months preceding year-end bonus time, she'd been billing more hours than most of the firm's other attorneys...

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Negotiating the Millenium as We Continue to Honor National Women's History Month

Posted on March 25, 2010

"Do We Really Want to Hire a Woman Mediator on this Case?" Victoria Pynchon Goes All In

Posted on March 24, 2010
Five years ago, after twenty-five years of high-stakes complex commercial litigation, I left legal practice to pursue a full-time ADR career.  At the time I left practice, these were the questions my teams and I were asking about the qualifications of mediators: "Do we really want to hire an attorney mediator for this case?" "Don't you think the client wants a Judge?" The ADR profession has mostly passed that hurdle...

Negotiating Civility: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

Posted on March 23, 2010
I was at a meeting of settlement officers for the U.S. District Court (Central District of California) last week when someone complained of a proposed rule change that attorneys would "game the system."  I said (snarkily) "is there any other way?"  An early mentor told me:  anyone can win on the merits - it takes a great lawyer to win on procedure...

Negotiating Women Do It Without Lawyers

Posted on March 23, 2010
Oprah's settlement of the defamation action on the eve of trial reported here; the press release says: "The two parties met woman to woman without their lawyers and are happy that they could resolve this dispute peacefully to their mutual satisfaction...

Differences in Men's and Women's Conflict Negotiation Styles

Posted on March 21, 2010
I'm blogging about gender and negotiation this month because March is National Women's History Month and March 8th was the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day (commenced in 1910, a full decade before the Nineteenth Amendment would grant U.S...

Never Get in a Bar Fight with a Thai, Negotiating with the Chinese and the Upcoming Course for Negotiating Women

Posted on March 20, 2010
Xan Skinner, a lawyer, mediator and restorative justice practitioner, lived for four years in China and speaks Mandarin.  Yesterday, at the Orange County Mediation Conference, Lee Jay Berman of the American Institute of Mediation, gave the keynote on Cross-Cultural Negotiation...

How to Negotiate Anything: Free Intro to Craving Balance Workshop

Posted on March 19, 2010
The good news about this podcast is that after the first few minutes, all the distracting noise goes away (other than the dinging sound of people coming on to the call).  We cover distributive/interest-based negotiation; framing; anchoring; reason-giving; and, collaboration/reciprocity...

Master Mediator Jeff Kichaven on "Personality" and Establishing Credibility in Mediated Negotiations

Posted on March 17, 2010
These videos are Mediation 101 by one of the best commercial mediators in the greater Los Angeles area, Jeff Kichaven. For Jeff's more sophisticated materials, check out his articles here.

Resources on Women and Negotiation in Honor of Women's History Month

Posted on March 17, 2010
I'm sure you've noticed that we're celebrating negotiating women here this month in honor of International Women's Day and National Women's History Month.  Other than tomorrow night's free negotiating women teleseminar with super coach Lisa Gates, I'm celebrating by posting in one place all of my articles on negotiating women...

Free Twitter Negotiation Seminar on Never Again Doing It Free

Posted on March 17, 2010
You know all the statistics about women's failure to negotiate their first salaries, their car purchases, their raises, their rates, and their price points.  If you don't, run over to Lisa Gates Craving Balance Blog right now for the straight skinny on women and negotiation (Why Women Must Negotiate Now than Ever Before)...

A New Negotiation Blog - The Critical Path - Takes Flight

Posted on March 16, 2010
Litigating and trying complex construction disputes requires visionary strategic talent; incisive tactical skill; wise management abilities; and, dogged persistence.  Now construction litigator, trial attorney and mediator Ron White brings those qualities to the settlement of complex construction disputes with his newly launched blog, The Critical Path, Tools for Resolving Construction Disputes...

Two New Blogs to Help You "Win" Your Settlement Negotiation

Posted on March 11, 2010
Yes, Virginia, lawyers do "win" mediated settlement negotiations every work day.  They do so by: their reputation for success at trial; their ability to choose the right moment to first discuss settlement; their ability to "control" their team and their client ("control" being a legal term for good client relations arising from top notch client communication skills); their negotiation skill set - both in terms of long-term strategy and "at the table" tactics; their persuasive skill set - both with opposing counsel and with the mediator; their ability to conduct a risk-benefit analysis that approximates the true likelihood of their probable success at trial; their determination to make aggressive but reasonable first offers; their possession of and willingness to stick to a set of flexible "bottom lines" that give them sufficient room to "horse trade" and "hang the meat low enough for the dog to smell it; their ability to bring the right people to the table at the right time; and, their ability to walk away without dramatics if the other side is unwilling to negotiate in the realm of reality...

Honoring Richard By Carrying on His Work

Posted on March 11, 2010
Unlike many others in the mediation field, I did not make the acquaintance of Richard Millen until recently.  In the past couple of years, we met for extended lunches and too many tall lattes (the lattes mine) between the old Wolfgang Puck's and the shuttered Virgin Record Store at Sunset Blvd...

Negotiating Women: Free Teleseminar at Craving Balance

Posted on March 10, 2010
How to Negotiate Anything: Free Intro Thursday, Mar 18, '10 8pm EST Some researchers say that women's failure to negotiate working conditions, salary or other compensation--along with their hesitancy to seek what they're worth when they do negotiate--is one of the major reasons for the persistent wage gap for women in all work-related activities...

Mourning the Passing of a Great Friend, Mentor, Lawyer and Mediator, Richard Millen

Posted on March 10, 2010
Mediation World Loses a Patriarch. Must-read tribute to Richard Millen at Lee Jay Berman's new Eye on Conflict. Lee Jay traces the lineage of mediation in Southern California, with Millen at the top.  Whether you knew Richard or not, he says, if you're a mediator, you were taught by him...

Women Bloggers Proclaim National Women's History Month

Posted on March 07, 2010
Whereas American women of every race, class, and ethnic background have made historic contributions to the growth and strength of our Nation in countless recorded and unrecorded ways; Whereas American women have played and continue to play a critical economic, cultural, and social role in every sphere of the life of the Nation by constituting a significant portion of the labor force working inside and outside of the home; Whereas American women have played a unique role throughout the history of the Nation by providing the majority of the volunteer labor force of the Nation; Whereas American women were particularly important in the establishment of early charitable, philanthropic, and cultural institutions in our Nation; Whereas American women of every race, class, and ethnic background served as early leaders in the forefront of every major progressive social change movement; Whereas American women have been leaders, not only in securing their own rights of suffrage and equal opportunity, but also in the abolitionist movement, the emancipation movement, the industrial labor movement, the civil rights movement, and other movements, especially the peace movement, which create a more fair and just society for all; and Whereas despite these contributions, the role of American women in history has been consistently overlooked and undervalued, in the literature, teaching and study of American history: Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Settle It Now Negotiation Blog and the Blogs of all other women who are making and recording the history of the United States of America every working day, that March is designated as "Women's History Month...

Negotiating Gender Bias in ADR: the Commercial Client Speaks

Posted on March 06, 2010
I received this from a senior in-house attorney (male) at an international Fortune 500 company in response to my posts on gender bias: international arbitration . . . tends to be dominated by white males with European surnames.  The closed pool presents something of a problem for parties who are not enamored of a scrub-each-others'-back (consciously or unconsciously) form of decision-making...

Negotiating Gender: The Old White Men Speak

Posted on March 05, 2010
And they do so in favor of diversity.  See commercial arbitrator and mediator F. Peter Phillips' November 2006 National Law Journal article:  ADR Continental Drift:  It remains a while, male game.  I promised prescriptions for change and here are a few sent to me by Peter Phillips this morning...

Combatting Implicit Gender Bias in ADR

Posted on March 04, 2010
Now you know the disappointing statistics.  As women have populated the Bench, justice has become more privatized, lessening the benefits of diversity to those whose disputes lead them to Court; to arbitration panels and associations; or, to mediation panels...

Update on Gender Diversity in the Judiciary and in ADR

Posted on March 04, 2010
When I posted Negotiating Gender:  Why So Few Women Neutrals? I had not yet found a source for the statistical representation of women neutrals on the American Arbitration Association Panel.  I've now located an article on the AAA website from December 18, 2006  (here) stating that women then made up 13% of AAA's national roster of neutrals...

Negotiating Gender: Why So Few Women Neutrals?

Posted on February 28, 2010
Although most of the major providers of alternative dispute resolution services tout their commitment to diversity in the ranks of their neutrals, the coloration of nearly all ADR panels continues to be white; the nationalities European; and the gender male...

Negotiating Prejudice at U.C. San Diego

Posted on February 27, 2010
Things have changed at my alma mater, U.C. San Diego since I graduated with a degree in Literature and the required minor in literature in a foreign language (German). This spectacular library never fails to deliver artistic chills as the Empire State and Chrysler buildings were to do shortly after graduation...

Negotiating with Difficult People: Taking Your Own Part in It

Posted on February 26, 2010
As my book nears completion (A is for Asshole, the Grownup's ABC's of Conflict Resolution) I have more and more discussions about its theme, i.e., that "assholes" (and bullies and enemies) are not people but behaviors and not one person but two...

How Attorneys Value Your Claim When Making a Recommendation to Settle or Proceed to Trial: an Explanation for the Parties

Posted on February 20, 2010
I used to receive correspondence like this once every couple of months.  For reasons not clear to me, I'm now receiving two or three a week: I am the plaintiff in a malpractice action against a prestigious hospital. After eight years of litigation, the case is finally  set for trial in in May...

Negotiating with Feeling One More Time

Posted on February 16, 2010
It's always an honor to be asked to talk to law students about mediation as I was this week.  It's a pleasure to help them master the skills necessary to serve as mediators in the downtown Los Angeles civil harassment department. The students put me in mind of an e-Discovery Dystopia (see, The Horror, The Horror) where we'll be using artificial intelligence to 'handle' the facts and lawyers to apply 'the law' to them...

Women, Negotiation and the Persistent Wage Gap

Posted on February 10, 2010
Thanks to Ed. at Blawg Review for passing along this (somewhat rambling but well worth watching) lecture at Stanford University by  Deborah Kolb, the Deloitte Ellen Gabriel Professor for Women and Leadership at the Simmons College School of Management...

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