In past blog posts, I have discussed implicit biases and how important it is to recognize their existence and to counteract them in our daily lives. Yet, there may be another and more positive way of looking at them. It is simply a question of “framing”. (See below!) A November [Read More]
I had a really weird almost mediation recently. It was a lemon law matter. It cancelled at the last minute simply because plaintiff’s counsel (let’s call her Joan) was sending another attorney (let’s call her Janice) in her stead. The defendant did not like this substitution and so cancelled. It [Read More]
The art of negotiation seems to be very much in the news today, with issues involving trade, tariffs, immigration, arms sales, nuclear arms, et cetera. In preparing to teach a class on negotiation ethics as part of my Mediation Ethics course at USC Gould School of Law, it dawned on [Read More]
Informed Consent in Mediations Taking Place in California Originally published in the Daily Journal, September 28, 2018. Download the PDF Version of the Article Here Sometimes parties attend mediation without the proper preparation. If the matter is in litigation, their attorney may not have met with them beforehand to [Read More]
One well known mantra of mediators is that it is always better to mediate prior to filing a lawsuit than to incur the time and expense lawsuits entail. Most lawyers will tell you that litigation is the most expensive and least efficient way of resolving a matter; yet, they will [Read More]
I just finished conducting a mediation (lemon law) which did not settle. And I think the prime reason was that there were too many different attorneys handling the matter. Although in the same firm, they apparently were not communicating with each other or the representative of the client handling the [Read More]
I stumbled upon an article in mediate.com discussing an empirical study conducted in the Singapore Courts about their use of mediation. The actual article, (How Should the Courts Know Whether a Dispute is Ready and Suitable for Mediation? An Empirical Analysis of the Singapore Courts’ Referral of Civil Disputes to [Read More]
On September 11, 2018, Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 954 which (when it takes effect on January 1, 2019) will require attorneys to inform their clients of the confidentiality restrictions related to mediation and to obtain their clients’ written acknowledgment that this disclosure has been made to them and that [Read More]
