Mediation can be hard. Often, the parties start out a great distance apart, work towards narrowing the gap, but occasionally can’t quite straddle the gulf to come to an agreement in a single day. Last week, I gave my final lesson to my students at Pepperdine on sophisticated steps for breaking an impasse. I told them that it was a matter of both skill and faith.
The current issue of New York Dispute Resolution Lawyer — really a very good publication of the New York State Bar Association’s Dispute Resolution Section — includes a brief article by Roy Weinstein of the economic research and consulting firm Micronomics.
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.
The James F. Henry Speaker Series at New York Law School’s ADR Skills Program will offer its third event of the year on Wednesday, November 15, 2017, when CPR President Noah Hanft joins panelists Greg Gallopoulos (GC of General Dynamics) and Prof. Joan Stearns Johnsen to discuss how vital commercial contracts are “Built to Last.”
The Union Internationale des Avocats held its 24th World Forum of Mediation Centres in Singapore on October 13-14. In addition to the usual high level of discourse and the unparalleled opportunity to meet new friends and keep the old, this particular Forum offered the additional opportunity to reassess the extraordinary richness of Singapore as a world center for international commerce and commercial dispute resolution.
Nelson Mandela equated a great leader with a shepherd: “He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind.”
Two recently released survey reports measure the pervasive use of arbitration to resolve workplace disputes. Alexander J.S. Colvin of the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., has concluded that, “since the early 2000, the share of workers subject to mandatory arbitration has more than doubled and now exceeds 55 percent.”
Recently I attended a Mediation Summit in Hangzhou, China, and with some other American colleagues I was given a tour of the West Lake District Court in Hangzhou, China. The lobby had arrows pointing ahead for “lawyer service,” to the left for “court,” and to the right for “mediation and rapid arbitration.”
Kenneth Feinberg is a mediator who sleeps well every night after getting countless victims of America’s most notOrious tragedies to “yes.” Feinberg, a lawyer, mediator, and author of the new book, “Who Gets What: Fair Compensation after Tragedy and Financial Upheaval,” concedes that sometimes he wishes he also held degrees in divinity and psychology.
The mediator is already in the other room with your opposing counsel breaking the ice and getting a better understanding of the fine points raised in their brief Your case involves an egregious set of facts arising out of an abrupt termination of a 17-year employee after being diagnosed with a frozen shoulder, which required surgery and possibly a long recovery period.
