This will likely be of most interest to scholars writing in this area. In the final analysis, I think John’s original complaint that we are using BATNA “wrong” may be better directed at WATNA. I do think that many of us—myself included—have not been particularly clear about what we mean by WATNA, and in this sense may be using the term incorrectly.
In this post, I explain how I was led astray. Part of the reason is that I have come to believe – and still believe – that much of the cherished jargon in our field is misleading and confusing, as I describe below. So I was primed to believe that this was the case for BATNA too. I now realize that there is some confusion about BATNA, but not in the way I previously thought.
I am writing to share the news that Roger Wolf, a professor and pioneer of ADR in Maryland, passed away on Saturday, December 30, 2017.
As has been noted by Professor Stacie Strong, people should be very careful about drafting arbitration clauses. They can lead to many complications in just getting the arbitration started.
Unbundling goes by many names, including “limited scope legal services.” Lawyers provide specified services to clients rather than “full service” representation. It’s like ordering food à la carte instead of a fixed, seven-course meal.
Recently, Susan Yates and I conducted mediation trainings on behalf of the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire, the New Hampshire Judicial Branch Office of Mediation and Arbitration, and the University of New Hampshire, School of Law.
Both trial and mediation require a little “time traveling”. At trial, the lawyers ask the jury to fix their gaze upon a particular moment when an event occurred that caused their client to be damaged or caused a disruption in business or their lives.
In every conflict, and during every mediation, each disputant has an option of dwelling upon the misery of the past, or focusing upon the good that has come from ending the conflict and looking towards better days ahead. For me, Thanksgiving is a great opportunity to remind ourselves that gratitude is an attitude.
Counting passes of a basketball. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But there is a famous experiment which shows that many people get so engrossed in a simple task such as counting passes by a group of basketball players that they completely fail to notice the guy in the gorilla suit who walks through the room.
