Recently, I attended the Annual Conference of the Southern California Mediation Association. One of the workshops intrigued me as it was all about the words we use. Entitled “Words Matter: What to leave at the Courthouse Steps” , the speakers Dr. Debra Dupree and Harold Coleman, Jr. Esq. discussed how [Read More]
One Saturday afternoon, my husband and vegetated and watch a dreadful movie called “In Time “(released October 2011) . The theme of the movie is that time is literally money. In this science fiction thriller, In 2169, people are genetically engineered to stop aging on their 25th birthday. Everyone has [Read More]
As part of my preparation to teach a class on mediation confidentiality, I reviewed the Uniform Mediation Act with all of its comments (UMA). In doing so, it struck me that although mediation is extremely popular and common place, it would be good to remind ourselves why we should mediate [Read More]
Last week, I posted a blog about the shortness of our working life and whether we really want to spend it embroiled in litigation. That post reminded me of a much earlier post (dated October 1, 2007) in which I looked at time in terms of seconds in a day [Read More]
The other day I conducted a mediation between a non-English speaking plaintiff and a used car dealer. The issue was whether the dealer had misrepresented certain aspects of the sale to the plaintiff. We were well on the way to settling the matter when the issue of attorneys’ fees came [Read More]
There is an adage that a person who is her own lawyer, has a fool for a client, meaning that representing yourself is a foolish. Why? You lose perspective, objectivity and perhaps even credibility. Based on a recent event, it seems that this adage applies to mediators as well: one [Read More]
Many, many years ago, someone once said to me that people do not begin to negotiate until it is past the time to negotiate. How true this can be as borne out by a recent mediation. The matter involved the purchase and sale of a condo. The mediation was held [Read More]
Recently, I came across a report from the Harvard Law School Program on Negotiation entitled “Salary Negotiations”. (HLS_PON_FR_SalaryNeg_V03_031416_wf ) While it focuses on negotiating the best salary possible, some of its points are equally applicable to negotiations in general. In one of the articles, the authors make three important points: “(1) [Read More]
