On May 30, 2017, Chief Deputy Counsel Barbara Gaal, Esq. posted Memorandum 2017-30 containing most probably the final draft of the Tentative Recommendation of the CLRC on its study to create an exception to mediation confidentiality (Study K-402). While one or two issues remain for discussion at its June [Read More]
Life’s lessons come when you least expect them, and my mediation training comes in handy at such unexpected times. Recently, my husband and I adopted another English springer spaniel- Buddy. He is about 6 years old, and my husband and I are still getting to know Buddy and his temperament. Last [Read More]
One of the first things I Iearned about in game theory was the prisoner’s dilemma. As explained in Wikipedia, this theory was developed in 1950 by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher while working at the RAND corporation. It explains why two rational beings may not cooperate even though it is [Read More]
I just obtained a teaching position as a Lecturer of Law (aka adjunct professor) at University of Southern California Gould School of Law teaching the mediation ethics portion of an ADR Ethics class. One of the issues we will be discussing is the conflicting goals of the participants (that is, [Read More]
Several weeks ago, I posted a blog discussing two “lures of the Tribal Mind” set out by Daniel Shapiro in his recent book “Negotiating the Nonnegotiable.” (Viking 2016). Those lures- Vertigo and Repetition Compulsion- struck me as the most common and ones to which we all can easily relate. However, [Read More]
While everyone agrees that it is always best to have the actual parties and counsel physically present at a mediation, this is not always possible. Often, the plaintiff may appear by telephone and at times, I may not even be able to speak to the plaintiff but only to her [Read More]
On April 13, 2017, the California Law Revision Commission (CLRC) met once again to discuss mediation confidentiality as well as other topics. In preparation for this meeting, Barbara Gaal, Chief Deputy Counsel posted Memorandum 2017-19 which contains the almost final version of the Tentative Recommendation that will probably be posted [Read More]
If you have not yet figured it out, this notion of “alternative facts” intrigues me. (This is my third blog about it!) I think it is because as a mediator, I witness “alternative facts” quite frequently. No party is “lying” to me; in telling her story to me, she is simply [Read More]
