An article last month in the New York Times got me thinking that perhaps in my mediations, I should warn people that their memories and perceptions may be unreliable, especially where the situation involves parties of different ethnicities. In To Curb Bad Verdicts, Court Adds Lesson on Racial Bias for [Read More]
Time tends to pass, and we do not even realize it. In October, I received an invitation to attend my 40th law school reunion and did a double take; had it been THAT long? WOW! I decided to attend. During the weekend of festivities, Tulane put on two continuing legal [Read More]
Once again, The Economist published an interesting study on “why posh people spend less time noticing others.” In an article entitled “Your Class determines how you look [sic] your fellow creatures” in the science and technology section of the October 11, 2016 issue, the unnamed author recounts the experiments of [Read More]
Some weeks, I am able to settle each matter that I mediate while other weeks, I am unable to settle even one. Like everyone else, I think in terms of "streaks"; that is, I am on a good "streak" or a bad "streak".An article in the June 26, 2014 edition [Read More]
On Sunday, October 13, 2013, I will be participating in a panel presentation entitled, "Ethical Duties of Eliminating Bias in the Legal Profession" as part of the California State Bar's Eighty Sixth Annual Meeting in San Jose, California. The focus of our discussion will be hidden/implicit biases- those biases that [Read More]
Recently, I came across a study on bias against fat ladies. Researchers at the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity found that a "significant bias" exists "...against female [obese] defendants in the courtroom...."("Huffington Post")The researchers created a mock jury trial using 471 participants of various weights. Each was [Read More]
Two weeks ago, I posted a blog about "cognitive bias". As explained on ScienceDaily.com, "a cognitive bias is any of a wide range of observer effects identified in cognitive science and social psychology...that are common to all human beings." I recently conducted a mediation in which I saw one of [Read More]
The other day, I conducted a mediation that lasted awhile which gave me the opportunity to converse with plaintiff's counsel and to get to know her a little bit. As this was my first mediation with her, I wanted to get to know her. In the course of our chatting, [Read More]
