Searching for some inspiration for my next blog post, I came across an article in The Conversation entitled, “How the presence of pets builds trust among people”. Noting that 90 million American households have at least one pet, the author Megan Mueller notes that “… research shows our pets can [Read More]
Teaching the art and science of mediation brings to my consciousness a lot of pointers that otherwise reside in my subconscious. Two of them are the fine art of persuasion and the tool of persistence. The textbook used in class (Frenkel, Douglas N. and Stark, James H. The Practice of [Read More]
Why do mediators request briefs from the parties? No- it is not just to learn about the case. Their more important function is to force the parties to think and analyze their case; to give some thought about the strengths and weaknesses of their respective cases and consequently, their position [Read More]
The end of the semester is drawing near in my online employment mediation dispute class. The theme of the last discussion board is reflective: what three things has each student learned from or skills developed or improved upon in this course. There is a saying to the effect that as [Read More]
No doubt, you have encountered the situation where you are addressing a group of people and ask a question and are met with silence… absolute quiet! It feels awkward… no one is answering your question.(Indeed, Anglophones can not tolerate more than four seconds of silence while the Japanese can tolerate [Read More]
I have had several mediations lately in which the approach of the parties clashed. The clash can be labelled as the one-shot player vs the repeat player.(See: Is That All There Is? The Problem in Court-Oriented Mediation by Leonard L. Riskin and Nancy Walsh, 15 George Mason Law Review ___ [Read More]
Thanks to “safer at home” orders, I, like many other mediators, have spent my time learning the intricacies of video conferencing and more specifically Zoom as it has become crystal clear that mediations by telephone or video conference will be the “new normal”. It will be many months if not [Read More]
In preparing to teach a class on mediation ethics, I read Mediation Ethics edited by Ellen Waldman (Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2011). In it, she makes a point I had never thought about: The Model Standards of Conduct for Mediators are inconsistent. (Id. at 13-14.) (“Model Standards”) While the Model Standards [Read More]
