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July 7, 2020
Victoria Pynchon’s Settle It Now blog is on my daily list, and a recent post brought to our attention an interesting study on whether, by certain objective standards, attorneys get in the way of mediators’ work.
When organizations undertake critical projects, the sheer scale of the undertaking provides ample opportunity for conflict and disputes to occur, deepen and escalate.
I’ve handled any number of mediations where the parties and counsel view prospects for settlement with optimism. Lately, I’m seeing more and more pre-mediation conferences being held in complicated cases or cases where the prospects of settlement seem less likely.
Heidi and I would like to welcome you to Moving Beyond Intractability and the Massive Open Online Seminar Series. In this video we want to give you a quick overview of the rationale for the project and a bit of a preview of what you might expect.
Heidi and I would like to welcome you to Moving Beyond Intractability and the Massive Open Online Seminar Series. In this video we want to give you a quick overview of the rationale for the project and a bit of a preview of what you might expect.
This one we’re calling “Boys Will Be Boys — It’s Human Nature.” Many people assume that boys fight. I know my boys did and I didn’t constantly try to break up their fights. I thought that they were inevitable, and it was important to let them learn how to resolve their conflicts on their own.
We believe that society’s chronic inability to constructively handle intractable conflict constitutes a threat to human welfare that is at least as serious as that posed by climate change, infectious disease, or any of today’s other big social, political, economic, and environmental challenges.
I’ve been teaching a class at the University of Colorado on conflict skills. At the beginning of the semester, I ask students what they’re good at when they engage in conflict, and what they’re not good at – what they might like to learn how to do better.
Years and years ago, long before the Internet, I remember reading a political cartoon that stuck with me, written by Jules Fieffer. I have been looking for it ever since and I can’t find it. So I broke down and did a lousy job of redrawing it.
The answer that Guy and I have is that almost all of the problems that they identify that are in need of fixing our underlain by conflict problems and we haven’t learned how to deal successfully with intractable conflict. Let me illustrate.
One of the issues before the Court is particularly interesting: Whether a delegation clause vesting in an arbitrator questions of arbitrability of a claim has the effect of removing from a court any power to determine whether the court has jurisdiction to grant a motion to compel arbitration.
The Supreme Court has granted certiorari to review the decision of the 1st Circuit in Oliveira v. New Prime, Inc. (No. 15-2364, May 12, 2017). One of the issues before the Court is particularly interesting: Whether a delegation clause vesting in an arbitrator questions of arbitrability of a claim has the effect of removing from a court any power to determine whether the court has jurisdiction to grant a motion to compel arbitration.