Life’s lessons come when you least expect them, and my mediation training comes in handy at such unexpected times. Recently, my husband and I adopted another English springer spaniel- Buddy. He is about 6 years old, and my husband and I are still getting to know Buddy and his temperament. Last weekend, I was walking Cookie [...]
One of the first things I Iearned about in game theory was the prisoner’s dilemma. As explained in Wikipedia, this theory was developed in 1950 by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher while working at the RAND corporation. It explains why two rational beings may not cooperate even though it is in their best interests to [...]
I just obtained a teaching position as a Lecturer of Law (aka adjunct professor) at University of Southern California Gould School of Law teaching the mediation ethics portion of an ADR Ethics class. One of the issues we will be discussing is the conflicting goals of the participants (that is, the parties, their attorneys, and [...]
Several weeks ago, I posted a blog discussing two “lures of the Tribal Mind” set out by Daniel Shapiro in his recent book “Negotiating the Nonnegotiable.” (Viking 2016). Those lures- Vertigo and Repetition Compulsion- struck me as the most common and ones to which we all can easily relate. However, there are others- Taboos (Id. [...]
While everyone agrees that it is always best to have the actual parties and counsel physically present at a mediation, this is not always possible. Often, the plaintiff may appear by telephone and at times, I may not even be able to speak to the plaintiff but only to her counsel sitting in my conference [...]
On April 13, 2017, the California Law Revision Commission (CLRC) met once again to discuss mediation confidentiality as well as other topics. In preparation for this meeting, Barbara Gaal, Chief Deputy Counsel posted Memorandum 2017-19 which contains the almost final version of the Tentative Recommendation that will probably be posted for public comment after the [...]
If you have not yet figured it out, this notion of “alternative facts” intrigues me. (This is my third blog about it!) I think it is because as a mediator, I witness “alternative facts” quite frequently. No party is “lying” to me; in telling her story to me, she is simply telling me the “facts” as [...]
Well… we missed it again! International Day of Happiness was March 20, 2017, according to the United Nations High Level Meeting on happiness and well-being. But, perhaps, missing it was not such a bad thing. According to the report, Norway ranks first followed by Denmark, Iceland and Switzerland. The United States ranks 19th in contrast [...]
