First and foremost- Happy New Year! May it bring you health and happiness and quick and peaceful resolutions to all of your disputes. On my first day back in the office, I read the Kluwer Mediation blog (January 2, 2017). The author- Geoff Sharp wrote on “Chunking Up and Down- [Read More]
About a week before Christmas, LiveScience published an article reviewing two studies suggesting “… that our brains prompt us to act more like Santa than Scrooge. (Id. at Your Giving Brain: Are Humans Hardwired for Generosity? by Mindy Weinberger (December 19, 2016.).) Based on two different research experiments, the researchers [Read More]
Not everyone lives the way we do. And just because someone may do things very differently than we might does not mean that what he alleges as happening is false. In social psychology circles, this tendency to discount others who do not share our world view is called “naïve realism” [Read More]
Although as a full time neutral, I usually get paid for mediating, as a way to give back to the community, I am on various state and federal court mediator panels in which parties can utilize my services for a certain number of hours on a pro bono basis or [Read More]
On December 1, 2016, The California Law Revision Commission (“CLRC”) met once again to discuss its Study K-402-Relationship Between Mediation Confidentiality and Attorney Malpractice and Other Misconduct. In each of its meetings in and after August 2016, the CLRC decided to create the exception and made other recommendations on this [Read More]
Although I have taken many many hours of training about negotiation, none of them has really involved what we witnessed during the Presidential election: extreme negotiations. In essence, both Mrs. Clinton and president-elect Trump were engaging in extreme negotiations with the American public in the hopes of becoming the 45th [Read More]
At one point or another in our lives, most of us have told “little white lies” if only to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. In telling that “little white lie”, we tell ourselves it is harmless and it will lead to nothing, and definitely, will NOT lead us to tell “bigger [Read More]
Thanksgiving is in a few days, and I want to take this opportunity to wish everyone a very Happy Turkey Day! I also want to take a moment to thank each of you- my readers and clients- for reading my blog each week and for allowing me to help you [Read More]
