Happy New Year! I hope that everyone’s 2023 is full of joy, happiness, peace and prosperity…. and brings an end to this pandemic! Over the last few days, the House of Representatives has been voting for a new Speaker. As I write this, it appears that Rep. Kevin McCarthy will [Read More]
Recently, I watched a webinar presented by the Beverly Hills Bar Association entitled “Unraveling Bias: Understanding Human Decision Making” by Denise Peterson, FCIArb, Attorney, Mediator, and Arbitrator and Adjunct Clinical Professor at South Texas College of Law. After defining “implicit bias” as “…attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, [Read More]
My husband and I were having dinner the other night at our club when our server approached our table and asked us if we “minded” giving her our membership number. Kiddingly, I said I minded but did give her the membership number. However, this prompted a comment from her that [Read More]
As we all know, mediation has become quite popular if not ubiquitous over the last twenty years. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, it was slowly gaining acceptance; in the last twenty years, it has truly become THE alternative to litigation. (No doubt, the pandemic with its lockdowns creating the necessity [Read More]
On three occasions in the past, I have written about a case in Saginaw, Michigan in which the issue was whether chalking tires on parked vehicles violated the Fourth Amendment’s unreasonable search provision. (See, May 10, 2019; September 10, 2021 and August 19, 2022.) In that case, Taylor vs City [Read More]
It seems that everywhere one looks, there is an implicit bias lurking behind the scenes. While recently, it was the birthday paradox, this week it is the implicit bias we have regarding status. In an article in the Science and Technology section of The Economist (September 14, 2022) entitled, An [Read More]
Recently, I received an email from Darren Lee, Executive Director of The National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals (NADN) with the results of a survey (NADN-2022-SurveyOfLitigators-ViewsOnODR[64656] ) of litigators on virtual mediation. The survey compared responses received in September 2020 with those received in September 2022. Both surveys were sent to [Read More]
Many of my blogs have focused on cognitive biases or systematic errors of judgment. In perusing the internet, I found another interesting example of why we should not trust our intuition. A LiveScience article (“What is the birthday paradox?”) posted on July 30, 2022, authored by Charles Q. Choi asks, [Read More]
