After many years of study and discussion, the California Supreme Court has finally adopted a modified version of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. By order entered May 10, 2018, the Court approved the request of the Board of Trustees of the State Bar for approval of comprehensive amendments to California's ethics rules for [...]
My office is in downtown Los Angeles. I usually start my mediations at 10:00 a.m. For a reason: so that the parties do not have to fight rush hour traffic to be on time (even though rush hour seems to be never ending). I have found that if people walk into a mediation angry and [...]
In its Smarter Living section on April 29, 2018, the New York Times posted an interesting article about how our unconscious biases can play tricks on us when it comes to experts. In an article entitled How Your Brain Can Trick You Into Trusting People, Tim Herrera discusses the shortcuts our brains take in everyday life [...]
Recently, I wrote about the lack of preparation. This week, I am taking that topic one step further: detachment! I had a bizarre mediation the other day. As usual it was a lemon law matter but this time it involved both the manufacturer and the dealer. Unlike many other instances, the manufacturer did NOT agree [...]
God, grant me the Serenity To accept the things I cannot change... Courage to change the things I can, And Wisdom to know the difference. (The Serenity Prayer) Several years ago, when my mother had severe dementia and was extremely ornery and contrary, my sister suggested that I read and remember the Serenity Prayer. I [...]
Several times in the past, I have discussed the need for each party to prepare for mediation for it to be successful. As you may guess, I return to this topic again because I just conducted a mediation that went nowhere fast because plaintiff was not prepared. It truly did not know what it wanted [...]
Many mediators in California will acknowledge that most parties in litigated cases do not like joint sessions and prefer to mediate using caucuses or separate sessions only. There are various reasons for this, among them a belief that counsel may lose control of the situation, that the joint session will devolve into a hostile, adversarial [...]
As some of you may recall, the California Law Revision Commission issued its Tentative Recommendation late last year to create an exception to mediation confidentiality. However, the proposed statute could not find a sponsor and so never got introduced into the legislature. Instead, Senator Wieckowski introduced SB 954 on January 30, 2018 which would add [...]