Arbitration & Mediation

In Celebration of Mediation Week: Legal Story Telling and the Obama Speech

Posted on March 20, 2008
I don't know if today's post by Paul Secunda over at Concurring Opinions was penned in recognition of Mediation Week, but it might as well have been.  See The First-Person Narrative in Legal Scholarship here -- excerpt below.  Allen Rostron[ and] Nancy [Levit's] ...

Help Me Alex, Help Help Me Alex -- Our Friend Judge Alexander Williams Settles the Beach Boys Litigation

Posted on March 20, 2008
This case has been knocking around the Los Angeles Superior Court for some time.  Though many mediators have tried to settle it, the case resisted resolution until it came into the full-time settlement court presided over by our friend and fellow Straus Institute-Adjunct Professor Judge Alexander Williams, III during California Mediation Week! Good work Judge!  And if you've ever spent any time with Judge Williams, you too would be saying, as I am, "he has all the fun!"Fun report below:  While the lawyers were in chambers with Williams the first day, Jardine and Wilson sat in the audience and chatted, occasionally singing lines from "Help Me Rhonda" -- for which Jardine was the lead singer -- and "Tom Dooley," the Civil War-era folk song made famous in a version by The Kingston Trio...

Posted on March 19, 2008

"Your Dreams Do Not Have to Come at the Expense of My Dreams"

Posted on March 19, 2008

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More on Knowing What You Want Before You Negotiate for What You Need

Posted on March 17, 2008
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Yet Another Arbitration Clause Bites the Dust

Posted on March 16, 2008
When we bought our house 6 years ago, Mr. Thrifty struck all ADR provisions from the sales contract.  He's come to respect ADR much more in the last few years.  Still, I believe he'd choose access to the justice system over its alternatives...

Achieving Your Heart's Desire: A Very Brief "How To"

Posted on March 16, 2008
Why talk about achieving your heart's desire in a blog dedicated to negotiated resolutions of disputes?  Because you must know how you value a thing before you can even begin to think about negotiating a price for it.This week, over at the Connecticut Employment Law Blog, Part II on my series of posts on negotiating  partnership compensation will appear...

Prostitutes, Strippers and Forgiveness

Posted on March 13, 2008
Sex scandals.  Terrible?  Shocking?  Repugnant?  How about forgiveable?  As someone who has made the resolution of conflict a full-time job, I can tell you that forgiveness -- explicit or implicit -- is a critical factor in every successful settlement...

Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Alexander Williams, III and Helen Bendix Talk About Settlement Conferences, Mediation Strategy and Tactics, and the Administration of Justice

Posted on March 12, 2008
The prestigious Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution has a new web site -- HERE!!! -- and a few videos that the beginning mediation or settlement advocate shouldn't miss.Here's Judge Williams, who sits in the downtown Los Angeles Superior Court as a full-time settlement judge...

We're Ready for Our Close-Ups, Mr. DeMille: Med-Arb Ethics Video

Posted on March 12, 2008
Along the Borderline Straus Institute Instructional Video (time 16:05)Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) processes address a variety of client needs. In different situations, different approaches best meet the needs of particular clients. As ADR practitioners skilled at delivering a variety of processes, the question of when it is appropriate to mix approaches arises...

Smart Bloggers Who go to Trial Expand the Pie

Posted on March 12, 2008
What's the secret of a happy law-life?  Being right?  No!Delegating responsibilities.  That's what Connecticut employment lawyer and blogger, Daniel Schwartz, has done while he's trying one of those employment cases that resist negotiatied resolution...

Conflict Map

Posted on March 12, 2008
Conflict Map with Credit to Richard Reuben_2_[1] - Get more free documents

Mediation Confidentiality in California

Posted on March 11, 2008
Confidentiality in Settlement Negotiations and Mediation - Get more free documents

Mediation Week in California March 16-22, 2008

Posted on March 10, 2008
MediationWeek[2] - Get more free documentsThanks to Kevin Forrester for the head's up here!

You Have Coverage for That? Finding Your Bottom Line

Posted on March 10, 2008
How important is insurance coverage to your clients' decision to bring or defend or negotiate the resolution of a commercial dispute?  It's usually the difference between having options and being entirely out of luck.And when that decision concerns catastrophic losses?  Unless you are an insurance coverage specialist, you make coverage decisions at your peril...

Let's Just Go Ahead and Assume that, Torture or Not, Waterboarding is A-O.K. The Very Bottom Line? "Torture is Essentially Useless"

Posted on March 08, 2008
I don't make this stuff up.  Read Pray and Tell from the American Prospect Online Edition by Jason Vest, excerpt below and full article here.  ON MAY 13, 2004, AS THE WORLD MEDIA WERE IN full serum over Abu Ghraib, an FBI agent who had spent time interviewing terrorism suspects at the U...

A Dark Day in America: Torture Veto Vetoed

Posted on March 08, 2008
Being "neutral" does not mean we check our common human decency at the door.  Do understand this however.  When we are feeling frightened and disoriented, anger and its explosive cousin rage, consolidates our sense of self.  This is one of the main reasons why aggression is so emotionally satisfying...

Peace in the Law Firm: What Do Women Lawyers Really Want?

Posted on March 07, 2008
(collage by artist Tamar Factor)I'm ridiculously excited to announce that the new issue of The Complete Lawyer is out and that it focuses on women's legal careers -- see The Complete Lawyer's What Do Women Lawyers Really Want here!Publisher Don Hutcheson has added an ADR column to his brilliant work-life-balance journal -- The Human Factor -- written by my good blogger buddies Stephanie West Allen of idealawg and Brains on Purpose, Gini Nelson of Engaging Conflicts, and Diane Levin of the Mediation Channel...

Negotiation Coaching from Down Under

Posted on March 06, 2008
Take a look at Geoff Sharp's Mediator Blah Blah post today about mediation coaching.  Here are five different ways in which a mediator can coach a party to achieve more from the negotiation than he might otherwise be able to achieve without assistance:1...

Peace in the Law Firm? The Snark Says: Fess Up

Posted on March 06, 2008
(right:  Calvin Coolidge, Zelig and Herbert Hoover)Soon, the Complete Lawyer's Human Factor Columnists (first appearance, Vol. IV, Issue 2 /*) are going to be addressing the ways in which you can use conflict resolution techniques to create, or restore, peace in your law firm...

"Coerced to Settle By Attorneys"

Posted on March 05, 2008
Sometimes reading my statistics page is the best way I have of taking the pulse of my readers and diagnosing the current actual rather than the aspirational state of settlement and mediation practice.Listen.  Only the squeakiest client or party wheel will tell you that he is feeling coerced into settling the litigation that has become a millstone around your neck...

Vioxx Settlement Update from the New York Times

Posted on March 04, 2008
The New York Times Reported today that 44,000 people have signed up for the Vioxx settlement here.  Excerpt below.  For full report click on link.More than 44,000 people have signed up for a piece of a $4.85 billion settlement over the withdrawn painkiller Vioxx, a sign that the deal is on track to go forward, the drug’s maker, Merck & Company, announced Monday...

Chain of Custody with Electronic Documents: Another Reason I'm Glad Not to Be Practicing Law Anymore

Posted on March 04, 2008
But if you are still practicing law, download this great practice guide from Merrill-Legal Maintaining the Chain of Custody in Civil Litigation. 

The Power of Persuasion: Obama's Oratory

Posted on March 04, 2008
If the political season(s) have gotten too serious for you, check out I've Got a Crush on Obama below. Moment of Nostalgia:  When I was in high school, I was too frightened to compete in the impromtu or extemporary speech categories and too lazy to prepare all those 3x5 cards for debate...

It's Time to Begin Distinguishing Between Good and Bad Mediation Practice

Posted on March 03, 2008
Geoff Sharp over at Mediator Blah Blah cites one of New Zealand's top trial lawyers as saying that mediation "struck him as a 'dishonest kind of process'" explaining:   At one mediation I attended the mediator, who was the most eminent mediator in Australasia, put a 50c coin on the table and said to the parties, "this coin is like litigation, it could fall on either side...

Arbitrator Not Liable for Assault During Recess

Posted on March 03, 2008
Why do you think they call it recess?When tempers flare to the boiling point, arbitrators who fail to prevent recess assaults are immune from suit according to the New Jersey appellate court, as detailed in this Law.com article, Arbitrator is Not Liable for Attorneys Alleged Assault here...

Mediation Advocacy: The Story of Mediation

Posted on March 01, 2008
Compare the hilarious Bob Newhart routine above (from Mad TV) with any episode whatsoever of HBO's new series about psychoanalysis The Treatment.  In legal/mediation terms, Bob Newhart's "treatment" -- "just stop it!" -- is akin to the mediator's refrain -- "move past it," "get over it" or simply "move on...

ABA Dispute Resolution Conference in Seattle in April!

Posted on March 01, 2008
The ABA Section of Dispute Resolution Presents The 10th Annual Spring Conference Pacific Currents: Sound Perspectives on ADR April 3-5, 2008 Pacific Currents: Sound Perspectives on ADR is the premiere conference in the world for dispute resolution professionals and lawyers engaged in dispute resolution processes...

Why the Legal Blogosphere? Try Ken Adams

Posted on February 29, 2008
O.K., from time to time I draft a brief for someone.  It keeps my hand in the game and REALLY -- it's MUCH EASIER to make $$$ doing what I did for 25 years than for what I've been doing for four.  I have HIGH HOPES that my research and writing mini-career will soon be shut down by my ADR career, but in the meantime ...

The Peace Symbol Turns Fifty

Posted on February 28, 2008
Thanks to Dominique Foucart at Réseau Médiation for directing us to the web site of the 50th Anniversary of the Peace Symbol here -- which we picked up in Dominique's weekly column -- this week in the anglophone blogosphère...

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