As a mediator, I have often had a party tell me that she will not settle on the terms proffered because, “It is all about principle!” I take this with a grain or two of salt because I have learned that if the other party becomes sufficiently generous in the [Read More]
In 2006, the American Bar Association issued an ethical opinion- ABA Formal Ethics Op. 06-439 entitled A Lawyer’s Obligation of Truthfulness When Representing a Client in Negotiation: Application to Caucused Negotiation. At issue was whether an attorney has to be as truthful in a caucused mediation as she is obliged [Read More]
In last week’s blog, I mentioned one paradox (competition and cooperation) discussed by Bernard Mayer in his book, The Conflict Paradox (ABA and Jossey-Bass, 2015). A second one is avoidance and engagement. Like the first paradox, on superficial glance, avoidance and engagement appear to be polar opposites. But, upon deeper [Read More]
I never really thought about Implicit Bias being the flip side of Diversity or of Diversity being the antidote to Implicit Bias until I read two articles recently. One was in the December 2015 issue of the American Bar Journal (ABA) entitled “Battling Bias” by Stephanie Francis Ward discussing a [Read More]
Depending upon where one mediates within the United States, the mediator either will start the mediation with a joint session or will simply start with separate sessions so that the adverse parties may, indeed, never see each other. For some reason, using joint sessions is popular on the east coast [Read More]
Recently, I attended the California State Bar Convention. One presentation was entitled “Tackling Emotion in Mediation: Tips for Dealing with People in Conflict.” The panelists were Claudia Hagadus Long, Esq.; David M. Miller, Esq. and Randy Kolin, Psy.D. Based on the many, many mediations I have conducted, I have found [Read More]
In most disputes, when people get angry- it is a bad sign! It usually means that the dispute will NOT get resolved, and that one or the other party will leave in a huff. Indeed, neuroscience teaches us that when the parts of our brain that control our emotions are operating [Read More]
I conducted a mediation the other day in which both sides professed that they wanted to settle the matter as the trial would be a “big distraction” but were stymied in their efforts due to personality conflicts. (They both wanted to settle as they did not want to have anything [Read More]
