Arbitration & Mediation

Mediators Give California Budget Crisis Advice

Posted on September 22, 2008
From the Sacramento Bee's Political Editor Amy Chance, Q&A: Mediators brainstorm on how to fix the state budget process As California's longest budget stalemate in state history ground to a close, six professional mediators met with The Bee's Capitol Bureau last week to offer their thoughts on building a more functional state budget process...

Blawg Review #178 Celebrates One Web Day

Posted on September 22, 2008
If you believe that law blogging is not only informative and entertaining, but capable of transforming our lives, our society, our culture and our legal system as well, run don't walk over to Peter Black's Freedom to Differ which not only rocks, it twitters, on One Web Day...

Private Means for Public Justice? Professor Murray Responds

Posted on September 20, 2008
After generously commenting on my own comments to his article on the Privitization of Justice (any chance I can get permission to publish it here Professor?), Harvard Law School Professor Peter Murray left a comment which I've decided to bring "upstairs...

Law in Motion at KobreGuide

Posted on September 19, 2008
Are you spending too much time surfing channels or cruising YouTube for quality documentary film?  Absent my NetFlix picks, I'd be wailing 600 channels and there's NOTHING to see! Now there's KobreGuide with its own law channel here. The Guide takes its name from its publisher and editor  Ken Kobré whose textbook (right) has been  widest-selling text on photojournalism in the world for nearly thirty years...

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Potential for Treble Damages Adds Weight to Settlement Demands for Bad Faith

Posted on September 18, 2008
The following important update on the recovery of bad faith treble damages from the lawyers at  Edwards, Angell, Palmer & Dodge California Federal Court: Insured Plaintiff Can Seek Treble Punitive Damages For Insurer’s Alleged Bad Faith The U...

John DeGroote's Settlement Perspective is the Great New Kid on the Block

Posted on September 18, 2008
John DeGroote of Settlement Perspectives soon to appear at Mediate.com Featured Blogs.  The missing link between mediators and litigators.  The client!! Now we just need a blogging claims adjuster and we can bring peace to the Middle East. Below are John's impressive credentials...

More on Mediation's Corruption of Justice

Posted on September 16, 2008
I note today that yesterday's post was . . . . well . . . a little snippy.   Now that I've managed to get my hands on a copy of Professor Murray's article on the privitization of justice (which I'll post as soon as someone gives me permission to do so) I have a few more observations that are more nuanced than my first reaction...

Negotiating Justice: Are Mediators Corrupting the Legal System?

Posted on September 15, 2008
Check out Geoff Sharp's review of Harvard Law School Professor Peter Murray's article The Privatization of Civil Justice recently published in the summer issue of Judicature magazine.   The bottom line?  because mediators are people we must naturally place our own self-interest above that of the people we serve; and, because insurance companies are ADR "repeat players," we mediators will naturally favor them because ...

Welcome ABA Journal Readers

Posted on September 14, 2008
That spike I noticed in my readership while I was in New York was generated by this month's ABA Journal and its Ask the Experts ad.  I can't say enough good things about the new look; fresh content; and, terrific online sources provided by this once-stodgy  organization...

Negotiating Politics: Mediators and Neutrality

Posted on September 10, 2008
Let's be clear about one thing.  Mediators are not human Switzerlands.  We have opinions, often strong ones, about issues like the rule of law in America, negotiated resolutions to intractable conflicts, the proper role of force against another sovereign nation and whether torture is a tool Americans ought to be using in the name of national security...

Legal Literacy Hosts Blawg Review # 176

Posted on September 08, 2008
Legal Literacy hosts Blawg Review # 176 and just in time for the Presidential election!  We're reminded that today is International Literary Day; that millions of people throughout the world do not have the opportunity to learn the 3Rs; that the U...

5 Blogs and 5 Blawgers

Posted on September 07, 2008
It's been a long while since any of us have received a “five things” meme! Jordan Furlong of Law 21 tagged Susan Carter Liebel of Build a Solo Practice who tagged me, as did Diane Levin at the Mediation Channel (tagged by anonymous Ed...

18th Century Technology; 21st Century Problems

Posted on September 05, 2008
LegalTED, coming soon to a conflict near you. In the meantime, I'm off to one of my two favorite cities in the entire world:  Manhattan.  In the meantime, I leave you in the capable hands of Albert Einstein. Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent...

An Idea Whose Time Has Come: A Legal TED Conference

Posted on September 04, 2008
A lessee of commercial office space complains that the common areas are not being properly maintained. The local high school has just banned Catcher in the Rye. Again.  A prestigious law firm fires a first year associate because he refuses to remove his new “tongue stud...

Negotiate Sobriety with the Labor Day Edition of Blawg Review # 175 at Austin DWI Lawyer

Posted on September 01, 2008
If you've never been asked to perform a field sobriety test, raise your hand.  That's what I thought.  Only Ken Adams whose Dilbert post was one of my week's favorites. And for the three of you who have not yet seen this video of why not to come to court drunk and how not to respond to the Judge's questions in an intoxicated state, see this hilarious video...

What Can You Do if Someone Breaches a Mediation Confidentiality Agreement?

Posted on August 30, 2008
(image from and links to HOA Issues Solved in Five Steps) I've recently been covering mediation confidentiality from an attorney's point of view.  Because my statistics page reminds me that clients also read this blog, I sometimes direct posts to the people with the problem -- clients...

Optimistic Heart and Pessimistic Mind: Obama's Nomination

Posted on August 27, 2008
Although I do I try to steer clear of politics, I simply cannot resist during this compelling political week and particularly on this historic day.  F. Scott Fitzgerald said that the mark of a first rate intelligence is the ability to simultaneously hold two contradictory ideas in your mind...

Negotiating Cognitive Biases at the OC Bar Ass'n ADR Meeting on September 4

Posted on August 26, 2008
Orange County Bar Association Alternative Dispute Resolution Section Meeting Reminder Thursday, September 4, 2008 Noon to 1:30 p.m. Wyndham Hotel 3350 Avenue of the Arts, Costa Mesa Speaker: Victoria Pynchon Attorney at Law, Mediator Author of the Settle It Now Negotiation Blog Judicate West   Using and Losing Cognitive Biases to Win Your Next Negotiation How common biases prevent us from influencing others, interfere with case analysis, and confound attempts to learn true needs of others Learn how to identify specific biases to negotiate better deals for clients For more information or to register:  Call FastFax at (949) 440-6700, x4 and request document 2279...

Clinton Speaks on 88th Anniversary of Women's Suffrage

Posted on August 26, 2008
(Right, women protesting, 1912.  My own grandmother was 12 years old at the time this photo was taken.  By the time she was old enough to vote in 1921, she could vote) Why women's voting rights and Hillary Clinton's DNC speech on a negotiation blog?  Several reasons...

California Courts Let You Have it Your Way: Arbitrate and Appeal the Award

Posted on August 26, 2008
(while we're walking down memory lane anyway, "Have It Your Way" from 1976)  When I ask litigators why they don't choose arbitration over litigation before unpredictable judges in a crowded court, their answer invariably is "because I can't appeal the ruling...

Negotiating the Political Conventions: Persuasive Argumentation

Posted on August 25, 2008
Everyone who's interested in the state of the union and its internaional relationships should be glued to the Democratic National Convention tonight and the Republican National Convention next week. They are negotiating the nation's future. Let's listen to the speakers with a critical mind and an open heart...

The Democratic National Convention Kicks Off

Posted on August 25, 2008
In honor of which, I'm excerpting and directing you to mediator Ken Cloke's article Thoughts on Mediation, Barack Obama and Our Political Future. [T]ere are four fundamental issues underlying this Presidential campaign, though they are somewhat broader in scope than what the candidates and pundits have been discussing: 1...

Is Collaborative Negotiation an Oxymoron? Should Litigators Care?

Posted on June 12, 2008
"No," to question no 1 says Clarke Ching of the software blog More Chili Please who is hosting this week's Carnival of Trust.  (Hat Tip to Chicago IP Litigation Blog)  And "yes" say I to question no. 2.Ching cites us to Davis Anderson's post, "Stop Negotiating, Start Collaborating" in the Agile Management Blog, an article that was first published in the Cutter Journal...

Settlement Shocker!! Early Settlements Save Businesses Money

Posted on June 10, 2008
From the National Law Journal -- Academics Proving that Which Everyone Already KnowsStudy Shows Early Litigation Settlements Save Businesses Money Sheri Qualters The National Law Journal June 9, 2008 A study of court settlements in personal injury lawsuits against businesses estimated companies could save an average total of $114,000 per claim or $670,000 for severe injuries by promptly settling cases instead of fighting them in court...

For Friends and Family

Posted on June 10, 2008
Dad -- former Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Donald Wayne Pike -- passed away on his 84th birthday:  9 June 2008.  I keep thinking I'll work and then I can't so, not knowing what else to do, am making my father a memorial blog...

The Truth of Departure

Posted on June 09, 2008
                   9 June 1924              Donald Wayne Pike              9 June 2008Dust Bowl Refugee, High School Drop Out, Western Union Messenger Boy, Merchant Marine, Salesman, Lawyer, Judge, Husband, "Daddy" Step-Father, Grand-Father, Brother, Uncle, Cousin, Mountain Climber, Sailor, River Rafter, Story-Teller, Proud Capitalist, World-Class Worrier  and Sometime Liberal Democrat (when married to one) The Truth of Departure                          -- W...

Negotiating Evil: Hear, See, Speak

Posted on June 08, 2008
I do hope you'll pick up Ken Cloke's new book Conflict Revolution.  Keep it on your night stand.  Dip into it when you feel angry, hopeless, and grief-stricken at a local, national, or international act of violence.  Here's a little good news from Ken's book to cheer myself and my readers up after the last lengthy post on the Robert F...

Robert F. Kennedy on the Mindless Menace of Violence Forty Years Later

Posted on June 07, 2008
If you are of a certain age, you will vividly recall where you were forty years ago when you learned that the unthinkable had happend -- another Kennedy brother had been shot.I was fifteen years old.   The insistent ring of the telephone broke into my sleep in the early morning hours of June 6, 1968...

Negotiating Life's End: the Coming Crisis and Likelihood of Litigation

Posted on June 06, 2008
One of the reasons I began this series was to explore the type of professional behavior that tends to trigger professional malpractice litigation -- and how that litigation might be avoided.  .  As you may recall, my first post reported the findings of a study of the motivations giving rise to medical malpractice lawsuits...

Negotiating Life's End in Mediation?

Posted on June 05, 2008
Let's for a moment assume that I had not surrendered the control of Dad's final days to his wife, into whose hands he has so indisputably placed them.  If you've been following this series, you may have concluded that my Dad's immediate family (step-children; my sister) are likely indifferent to, uninterested in or incapable of dealing with the end of Dad's life...

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