Recently, 60 Minutes presented a segment on Story Corps and, more particularly, on its program One Small Step, which is “… a national effort to help bridge divides during a contentious election year.” (Id.) To do so, the program brings people of diverse, if not opposite, backgrounds together to spend [Read More]
Over the last few years, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) has been front and center. Indeed, the California State Bar has made one hour of continuing education in the technology part of the Mandatory Continuing Legal education requirement. If you take the one-hour webinar, it no doubt focuses on [Read More]
Misbelieving Several weeks ago, I went to a bookstore with my husband to pick up a book he wanted. He did not buy it, but I found an intriguing book: Misbelief: What Makes Rational People Believe Irrational Things by Dan Ariely (HarperCollins, New York, 2023.) While the book discusses what [Read More]
The Sound of Silence is a song written by and released in 1964 by Simon and Garfunkel. It was used in the movie, The Graduate. Its lyrics include the phrases: “People talking without speaking, People hearing without listening.” It is the last phrase I want to dwell on: People hearing [Read More]
Recently, I attended a webinar sponsored by the Beverly Hills Bar Association entitled “ Ethical Obligations: How Bias Plays a role in our Decision- Making” presented by Mindy Gulati, Esq., Founder and CEO of Fundamental Advisory. Initially, Ms. Gulati discussed the notions of explicit and implicit Biases as well as [Read More]
A few weeks ago, I posted a blog on the importance of the words we use during a mediation or any negotiation. For example, rather than using labels “the other side” or “Plaintiff” or “defendant”, we should use the actual names of the people involved. As chance would have it, [Read More]
Recently, I attended the Annual Conference of the Southern California Mediation Association. One of the workshops intrigued me as it was all about the words we use. Entitled “Words Matter: What to leave at the Courthouse Steps” , the speakers Dr. Debra Dupree and Harold Coleman, Jr. Esq. discussed how [Read More]
The other night in mediation ethics class, we discussed using deception in negotiation and more specifically why certain folks will outright misrepresent an important fact as opposed to merely puffing or embellishing a little bit. In order to use such deception, we have to tell ourselves it is okay by [Read More]
