Most people attend mediation, fully engaged and committed to the process, hoping to resolve a matter. However, there are some who attend mediation with no real desire to settle, despite their outward claims. I had such a mediation the other day. It was court-ordered on the eve of trial. The [Read More]
I am in a quandary. Whenever I have a mediation that does not settle at mediation, I follow up. But the question arises: what is the best way? Should I do it by telephone? E-mail? Text? Some of the above? All of the above? This quandary came to mind in [Read More]
The Economist magazine has a feature called “Bartley,” which discusses business management. A recent article entitled “Why We Need to Laugh at Work” discusses the importance of humor in the workplace. Among other things, the article points out the obvious: “… a sense of humour is, by and large, a [Read More]
A good friend emailed me the other day asking if I had written anything recently on mediation confidentiality. I decided to call her in response, wondering if I had missed any news. It turned out that she had a student who questioned the value and effectiveness of confidentiality in mediation. [Read More]
As mentioned, I teach an online course at USC’s Gould School of Law, which is couched in employment law and teaches how to mediate from soup to nuts. The book we use advocates the use of joint sessions. But I always tell my students that, for some reason, in California, [Read More]
Last weekend, I attended a conference of fellow mediators. One of the points raised was that mediating via Zoom, or any other video-conference platform requires a different skill set and for those new mediators (of less than three years) , it may be the only skill set they know. That [Read More]
This semester I am teaching an online Employment Dispute Mediation course at USC Gould School of Law. Using employment law as the substantive vehicle, I am teaching my students essentially how to be mediators from “soup to nuts.” In teaching them how to mediate, I note to my students repeatedly [Read More]
A recent survey ( NADN-2022-SurveyOfLitigators-ViewsOnODR[64656] ) conducted by the National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals found that prior to the pandemic and lock down in March 2020 only about 2% of litigation attorneys had ever attended a mediation or arbitration using a video conference platform. But thanks to the pandemic, as [Read More]
