Like many folks, I have watched the Summer Olympics occasionally during the last week or so. The one thing that struck me is that not only are the competitors racing against each other, but they are racing against the clock, trying to set new world and/or Olympic records. Can the [Read More]
Recently, 60 Minutes presented a segment on Story Corps and, more particularly, on its program One Small Step, which is “… a national effort to help bridge divides during a contentious election year.” (Id.) To do so, the program brings people of diverse, if not opposite, backgrounds together to spend [Read More]
I opened the Science section of the New York Times last week to find an article about the value of mediation when siblings cannot agree on the next care steps for their elderly parents. Entitled “When Families Fight Over a Relative With Dementia, It’s Time to Call in the Mediator.,” [Read More]
In his book, Influence- Science and Practice, Robert B. Cialdini (4th ed. Allyn and Bacon, Boston 2001) discusses six psychological principles that impact us every day. One of them is Commitment and Consistency: “ It is, quite, simply our desire to be and to appear consistent with what we [Read More]
Suppose you are mediating a divorce in which the wife agrees to accept 25% of the community assets in settlement even though a court would award her 50%. She wants the matter concluded as quickly as possible in the worst way and so will accept anything to be done with [Read More]
Last week I posted a blog discussing which standards in the Model Standards of Conduct for Mediators might be the most important. While each of us, undoubtedly, has a different opinion, for fun I decided to ask ChatGPT how it would prioritize the standards. I did so, both from [Read More]
Last semester, one of my students took the wrong take home exam. So, I prepared a special make up exam which was simple yet required a lot of thought: Rank in terms of importance five of the nine model standards in the Model Standards of Conduct for Mediators and explain [Read More]
Having mediated several thousand disputes over close to 20 years, I sometimes forget that for one or more of the parties appearing at mediation, he/she has never been in a mediation (It is quite new and foreign to him/her.) and so may be quite anxious about it all. Thus, my [Read More]
