Arbitration & Mediation

An angel at my table

Posted on October 10, 2008
There's a post perfect for weekend musing over at Conflict Zen.For me, Tammy Lenski's piece it's about how everything - all the conflict we get in the middle of as mediators - is in the end about us; not us as mediators (it's never that) but us as individuals walking this planet, our kids, our communities, you know; US...

American Arbitration Association Mediation

Posted on October 09, 2008
Three things to note about the American Arbitration Association's mediation offering on it's new look website;1. The Triple A must have the biggest branding challenge in the business - I mean "American Arbitration Association Mediation" - how does that work on any level?I suppose it works by doing what Kentucky Fried Chicken did when they rebranded to KFC when the F word got in the way, and make it AAA Mediation...

LEADR Australasian Fellow 2008/2010

Posted on October 07, 2008
Last week I was honoured to be named LEADR's Australasian fellow for 2008/2010.Big shoes to fill, there having been only two previous fellows; retired Australian Federal Court Judge Tony Fitzgerald AC, QC and the multi-talented MATA founder member and mediator Jo Kalowski who divides her time these days between Paris and Sydney...

Counsel, strap on a pair!

Posted on October 06, 2008
For a long while now, my top 10 mediation advocacy tips has encouraged counsel to be brave.Bravery can take many forms in mediation, from counsel backing their own advice when the easier road would be to settle or indeed default to trial - to something a little more counter-intuitive and possibly risky...

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Personal Injury Claims Against AIG: Will They Get Paid?

Posted on October 03, 2008
Sizzling stuff over at The Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog;'I have received a number of calls from clients with personal injury claims against AIG fearing their claims are unprotected.Yesterday, we got a call in one of our AIG cases. Someone from Resolute Systems called and said that AIG had given them the assignment of settling large cases...

Are you a tactile mediator?

Posted on October 03, 2008
Do you shake hands before and after you mediate?You should.Or maybe even a light, comforting touch on an elbow or forearm during a stressful session?Not convinced? Well then, have a read of How Touch Sustains Personal and Business Relationships'The oxytocin system, which can be fired up by touch, allowed us, in ancient times, to enter into economic exchange with others...

A day in the life of... Bernadette Willems

Posted on October 02, 2008
Bernadette Willems is a family mediator at Simon Bergin Solicitors & Mediators of Cheshire in the UK.She gets up early, she swims at 7am, provides free intake sessions, convenes a mediation session where only one side turns up, supervises other mediators, meets up with satisfied clients and soaks in the bath before bed...

Can settlement orientated mediators like me cherry pick from transformative process?

Posted on October 01, 2008
Like many commercial mediators I fall in and out of love with transformative mediation all the time.To its credit, the transformative mediation community has held the line forever on the question whether problem solving/settlement orientated mediators like me can cherry pick from their process...

Top 10 New Jersey mediation blogs

Posted on October 01, 2008
New Jersey lawyer Donald Vanarelli has come up with his list of the top 10 New Jersey mediation blogs here.[click on the title of this post to read more...]

Mediation's kissing cousin: Collaborative Law

Posted on October 01, 2008
In Practical Insights from an Empirical Study of Cooperative Lawyers in Wisconsin John Lande outlines the results of a 2008 survey and offers recommendations to policy leaders for improving the practice of cooperative lawyering."Not surprisingly, many lawyers are reluctant to use a cooperative approach routinely...

Voices from the Outback

Posted on September 26, 2008
I live in New Zealand, just 3 hours plane ride from the buzz of global cities like Sydney and Melbourne or the golden sands of Queensland.Yet many here know almost nothing about the Australian mediation scenery.There are possibly two reasons for this...

ACR's 8th Annual Conference in Texas

Posted on September 25, 2008
This from Re:Solutions : Day 1 of the ACR National Conference.I really hope we hear from other bloggers who are attending the ACR's 8th Annual Conference Aspirations, Possibilities, and Realities:Expanding Principles,Practice, and Research in a Changing World ...

Heads-Up: Master Mediator Institute

Posted on September 25, 2008
In a Q & A session today at The National Arbitration Forum blog - Bob Creo, CPR's Master Mediator, let the cat out of the bag and disclosed his plans for a Master Mediator Institute.Bob says it's an idea that he's had rattling around in his head for a number of years...

Mediators forced to work for free

Posted on September 25, 2008
Seems to me our Southern Californian cousins should be active on this issue:L.A. bar opposes controversial resolution to pay mediators who work with local courts[click on the title of this post to read more...]

UK > London > Dispute resolution > Mediators

Posted on September 24, 2008
Stop Press: The UK Legal 500 is just out and has a section devoted to mediators.Hot on the heels of my post about UK's mediation aristocracy comes the Coronation!The Legal 500 ranks London mediators into 3 bands.And of interest to the up and comers is a comment 'Demand continues to rise, and as some of mediation?s pioneers like Henry Brown and to a lesser extent Presiley Baxendale QC have retired, and others still (like David Shapiro) have scaled down their practices, the opportunity to spread work a little wider than an established few, appears, at last, to be a realistic prospect'...

Good advice from Harvard's own agony aunt

Posted on September 23, 2008
[Click on Q or A to read more]From the September edition of PON's Negotiation newsletter [click on the title of this post to read more...]

UK mediation group aims is to create 'badge of seniority' analogous to Silk

Posted on September 22, 2008
In a sign of our maturing profession, a small group of UK's mediation aristocracy known as The Panel of Independent Mediators plan to create 'a badge of seniority in the mediation profession analogous to the QC kite mark enjoyed by senior barristers' according to the latest issue of The Mediator Magazine...

Free video: An introduction to managing conflict

Posted on September 21, 2008
Via Bill Waters' Campus ADR Tech Blog - a well produced video by Rick Olshak introducing conflict and styles of managing it.Watch or download here.Great for non commercial use by anyone teaching Mediation 101 (22 minutes). [click on the title of this post to read more...

Dunnett, Halsey and a guy called Milton

Posted on September 21, 2008
Stephen Cantle from Kennedys last week posted an interesting take on the UK line of cases that sees the court encouraging parties to mediate because of the threat of costs penalty if they decline - even where they eventually win at trial. He concludes that when you look at what cases such as Dunnett ? and the later Court of Appeal decision in Halsey v Milton Keynes NHS Trust 2004 ? have actually achieved in practice, the answer is depressing...

Egg-graders are licensed - why aren't you?

Posted on September 18, 2008
How Mediators Can Obtain Professional Certification And Thereby Elevate Their Profession: A look at IMI's voluntary credentialing program by Judith Meyer, Co-Vice Chair of IMI's Independent Standards Commission, and Michael Leathes, executive director of IMI...

Defining ?success? in dispute resolution training

Posted on September 18, 2008
Just out from John Wade at Bond University in sunny Queensland - a must read for anyone who dabbles in mediation training: Defining ?success? in negotiation and other dispute resolution training."Once upon a time in the far off kingdom of Learningland, three negotiation courses were held during the same week in the capital city Rarelyfail...

Are mediators corrupting civil justice?

Posted on September 17, 2008
Vickie Pynchon posts two feisty pieces here and here in response to my original article, which even caught the eye of The Wall Street Journal.And by doing so takes the 'are mediators corrupting civil justice?' debate far further than I would have dared...

East Meets West Today

Posted on September 16, 2008
East Meets West: An International Dialogue on Mediation and Med-Arb in the U.S. and China2nd Videoconference between Beijing Arbitration Commission and Straus Institute Wednesday, September 17, 6 pm - 8 pmMendenhall Appellate CourtroomPepperdine University School of LawGet along there today - details hereView the BAC/Pepperdine first video conference in 2007 here[click on the title of this post to read more...

Settling is bad for business

Posted on September 16, 2008
News this week that a well respected San Francisco litigation shop is in trouble and may close.The main reason being offered is that Heller Ehrman has settled too many of its cases and gave away 60% of the firm's revenue... highlighting once again the tightrope attorneys walk when weighing up the various tensions (client and firm) involved in deciding whether to negotiate or mediate...

The Privatizing of our Civil Justice System (and the insidious corruption of ADR)

Posted on September 14, 2008
When you are fully immersed in mediation every day, it's easy to underestimate how strongly some people feel about it - take for example Harvard Law School's Peter Murray and his acerbic piece, The Privatization of Civil Justice that was published in the summer edition of the American Judicature Society's Judicature magazine...

October Journal of Conflict Resolution out

Posted on September 12, 2008
The latest issue of the Journal of Conflict Resolution (October 2008) is out.Full text PDF's cost but you can check the abstracts for free.Contents;Benjamin O. Fordham: Economic Interests and Congressional Voting on Security Issues [Abstract] [PDF] Jaroslav Tir and Michael Jasinski: Domestic-Level Diversionary Theory of War: Targeting Ethnic Minorities [Abstract] [PDF]Massimiliano Landi and Domenico Colucci: Rational and Boundedly Rational Behavior in a Binary Choice Sender?Receiver Game [Abstract] [PDF] Jonathan W...

Using Videos at Mediation

Posted on September 10, 2008
If you are a lawyer in a personal injury jury jurisdiction yesterday's Using Videos at Mediation by Guy Kornblum is worth a read.[click on the title of this post to read more...]

Simply brilliant: CEDR mediator speed dating today in London

Posted on September 09, 2008
Wednesday 10 September, 4pm @ Bird & Bird, 15 Fetter Lane, London.Details here.You may want to choose your own subjects to discuss but CEDR has come up with four questions which might make an interesting topics for the speed dates:1) Why did you become a mediator?2) What is the best way to work with lawyers in a mediation?3) What classifies as a good result for a client in a mediation?4) When is and when isn't mediation good value for money?As with most speed dating events there will be score cards for participants to say who they would like to chat to again in more depth...

The Law Office of Donald D. Vanarelli gets mediation

Posted on September 09, 2008
These guys are on to it.'Trials, as a method of dispute resolution, have been trending downward for years. For example, the number of tort trials in the federal courts declined by 80% from 1985 to 2003. Of the 98,786 tort cases resolved in federal court in 2002 and 2003, only 1,647, or 1...

Evaluative mediation a hot button

Posted on September 09, 2008
Some really interesting comments at mediate.com here in response to Jeff Kichaven's recent Evaluative Mediation Techniques Help Achieve Success article.Hat tip to Deb Clapshaw[click on the title of this post to read more...]

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