Arbitration & Mediation

Robert Benjamin's Of War and Negotiation #2

Posted on January 22, 2008
Robert Benjamin's Of War and Negotiation #2 was posted today at mediate.com "... war and negotiation are not polar opposites, as they are so frequently presented. They inform each other as modes of conflict management and the best warriors must be effective negotiators and the best negotiators must study warfare strategies and techniques"Here for Of War and Negotiation #1But not everyone is convinced of Benjamin's recurring battle cry that now runs through his writings - "He is a very likeable guy, so I dove into [Obama: Reflections of a Hard Core Negotiator] with enthusiasm...

The Secrets of Successful (and Unsuccessful) Mediators

Posted on January 21, 2008
In my What makes a Supermed? post last year I mentioned 3 worthwhile articles.Two of them - The Secrets of Successful Mediators (Negotiation Journal, July 2005) and The Secrets of Successful (and Unsuccessful) Mediators (Negotiation Journal, October 2007) cost $29 each to download and anyway the third article - the free MATA Advanced Mediator Skills Project was as good as you'd want...

Mediators earn $66,800

Posted on January 17, 2008
Hot on the heels of yesterday's post showing mediation to be just a quarter of the cost of lawyer-to-lawyer settlements (and less than 10% of litigation) comes this recent article advising the median pay of a mediator in the US is $66,800.Apparently most mediators charge between $100 and $250 an hour but need to supplement their work with other employment to end up with a middle-class annual income...

Mediation just a quarter of the cost of lawyer-to-lawyer settlements

Posted on January 16, 2008
Apparently David Hoffman's Boston Law Collaborative has analyzed 199 of its recent divorce cases, and found that mediation, collaborative divorce and litigation all produced high rates of successful settlement.Mediation was by far the least expensive option, with a median cost of $6,600, compared to $19,723 for a collaborative divorce, $26,830 for settlements negotiated by rival lawyers, and $77,746 for full-scale litigation [read more][click on the title of this post to read more...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

This is not a job blog, but...

Posted on January 15, 2008
... this message today from transformative mediation's Robert A. Baruch Bush was just too important not to post.At first I thought the Great Man had written to me alone, but then the email turned out to be to a zillion others as well.But if you didn't get it here's the message;"I'm writing to inform you of a great opportunity to work as the director of a Transformative Mediation Clinic at Hofstra Law School, in New York, where I teach...

Aw man, I'm on holiday - don't make me work!

Posted on January 14, 2008
Hey, it was nice to be missed at the all new Mediation Channel.com and even be considered worthy of a missing person alert by Chris Annunziata.And thanks also to Vickie Pynchon, eleanorburnejones and Tammy Lenski for noticing one voice was missing from the usual chorus...

Ed Hillary 1919 - 2008

Posted on January 13, 2008
Before kids, before the mortgage, even before getting ahead seemed important I had the mountains - they had everything I needed as I sought to find a place at life's table.With climbing expeditions to Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan consuming 8 glorious years of my life as a young man I was introduced to lives well lived and lonely cold deaths - sustaining me, even today...

Thanks

Posted on December 18, 2007
OK folks, I'm done.Thank you for visiting in 2007 - there are plenty of places to go on the web and you know that I am very grateful that you make here one of them.This blog is a labour of love and although the thought of doing it all again next year is daunting, energy and inspiration permitting, I will do so in the hope you will again stop by in 2008...

Last week's impasse

Posted on December 16, 2007
An impasse had developed, the mediation was grid locked.As many had before him, the mediator hesitated outside the door and sucked in as much oxygen as he could from the stuffy hallway before turning the knob to the defense breakout room.They were an unhappy bunch...

Christmas giving

Posted on December 13, 2007
I've made a bit of a thing of Christmas client gifts over the years.Last year I gave up luxurious wool socks with a card saying 'just because it's alternative, don't get cold feet'.A Christmas before that it was telescopic hiking sticks with a note reminding the recipient that mediation '...

Not a good sign in the LA writers' strike

Posted on December 12, 2007
When parties are white-anting each other outside the mediation room, things are in a downward, and probably for the moment fatal, spiral.Confidentiality went long ago, now it's who can win the public relations contest.Here the Writers Guild of America tells us how talks broke down in the writers strike mediation last Friday night in LA and here The Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers gives their version...

The elements of a sphincter-tightening mediation presentation

Posted on December 10, 2007
The title may be a little strong but How to Build a Mediation Presentation That Will Make an Insurance Adjuster?s Sphincter Tighten is worth a look if you mediate insurance cases.'Insurance adjusters have seen the worst of the worst. They see horrific injuries every day...

'Get a life' or 'Yeah, right on'

Posted on December 08, 2007
Great comment from my friend, Mr/Mrs/Ms Anonymous on my previous post about going along to a Christmas bash last week;"Geoff, the real question here is whether you as mediator should be going to a repeat user's Christmas party at all..."But I can't decide whether it is ridiculously politically correct or if there is an ethical point to be made here...

We are not yet a recognised pruh-fesh-uhn

Posted on December 07, 2007
...because, at both client Christmas parties I had the pleasure of attending this week, my name tag read - Geoff Sharp, Barrister...Notwithstanding my only work for each organisation had been multiple mediations during the course of the year.pro·fes·sion [pruh-fesh-uhn] a vocation requiring knowledge of some department of learning or science...

Of War and Negotiation #1

Posted on December 05, 2007
I know Robert Benjamin has been working on this series for a while now.Of War and Negotiation: Lessons From The Europeans (Part 1) is out now.There's more to come and it's a must read."This series of articles is, in part, inspired by and intended to pay tribute to the power and importance of the emerging European approach to conflict management and mediation practice, that is pragmatic, realistic, and relatively free of ideological trappings...

Mediation providers no longer add value

Posted on December 04, 2007
Here is a fascinating paper entitled Mediation Providers No Longer Add ValueIt started life as a debate in 2006 sponsored by MATA but is now reproduced as a very readable think piece and has input from notables like Richard Schiffer, Chair of ADR Group and Elizabeth Birch, founder of ACI...

Money Mediation #2

Posted on December 01, 2007
In this second of two posts, I pick up last week's discussion around adversarial mediation and how sometimes, just sometimes, a mediator's reality is that parties with no prior relationship have few joint interests other than reducing transaction costs of getting to trial...

Money Mediation #1

Posted on November 22, 2007
In this piece I try to cover a topic in two consecutive blog posts which I would not normally attempt but for an important discussion at the recent LEADR conference in Wellington and continued across the Pacific a couple of weeks later at the IAM Portland gathering of commercial mediators...

Two interesting practice questions

Posted on November 20, 2007
Two interesting questions answered by co-chairs Diana Mercer and Robert Edward Lee Wright of the ABA DR Section's Standing Committee on ADR Practice Management, Business and Skills Development;1st Q: Our two children are just starting college and facing high tuition fees...

Apology in Mediation

Posted on November 19, 2007
[via indexed][click on the title of this post to read more...]

No is today?s biggest challenge

Posted on November 18, 2007
An interesting post over at Slaw, Canada's high profile cooperative law weblog.Mastering the Positive No is a look at William Ury's latest contribution, The Power of a Positive No: How to Say NO and Still Get To YES.[click on the title of this post to read more...

Free Journals

Posted on November 14, 2007
FreeFullText provides links to over 7000 scholarly periodicals which allow their online content to be viewed for free.Most publications appear to be for the left brained amongst us. Although I did find Mediators of Inflammation.You may get more out of SAGE who have announced free access until the end of November across all its 460 online journals...

What makes a SuperMed?

Posted on November 12, 2007
What makes a mediation super-hero?And who qualifies?Is it technique or style? Ask Ken Cloke and he will say you are the technique.Is it acquired or does it come from within?Is it art or is it a science?Why does she get all the work when he gets none?How come the most unlikely people have superb practices? To meet them outside the mediation room they are too flaky/too egotistical/couldn't listen to their own grandmother without interrupting...

A Neutral's Neural Net

Posted on November 10, 2007
If you are an ADR writer or researcher or even teacher - Princeton University?s Visuwords? is a great little free tool for you just launched this week.It's a dictionary. It's a thesaurus. Look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts...

DR in Second Life

Posted on November 08, 2007
This blog has posted before urging mediators to set up a Second Life mediation practice - even maybe a SL global mediation practice blog.News this week of a Second Life E-Justice Centre including an explanatory video from Bill Warters over at Campus ADR...

Double-Dipping

Posted on November 07, 2007
It's always a good week when someone, somewhere asks how come judges can leave the bench for retirement at the mediation table?And it's especially good if you have often wondered out loud (How wrong can you get? and Great on paper, crap at the table) what skills used for judging can possibly complement those needed for mediation...

Get it while it's hot

Posted on November 04, 2007
From one of the most generous bloggers out there, Dr Tammy Lenski offers you a free chapter from her soon to be released book - Making Mediation Your Day Job[click on the title of this post to read more...]

A complete moron with a nice personality can be a mediator

Posted on November 04, 2007
This ex labor attorney is an idiot, but it's what we are up against."... Mediation is a great job, incidentally. There is no possibility of a malpractice suit. You have no clients. You have virtually no files. You get paid at least $250 an hour. You have very low expenses, because you don't need a staff...

DR Works In Progress

Posted on November 03, 2007
Marquette University Law School has just wrapped up its interesting sounding Dispute Resolution Works in Progress Conference.The Conference was a gathering of scholars teaching and researching in dispute resolution.The list of papers is an eclectic offering and this one in particular caught my eye; How To Behave In a China Shop: New Forms of Advocacy In Mediation by Prof Jonathan Hyman, Rutgers Law SchoolProf Hyman observes that "Lawyers with their adversarial methods may become proverbial bulls in mediation?s china shops...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.