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.
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.
JAMS Rule 11(b) provides: “Jurisdictional and arbitrability disputes, including disputes over the formation, existence, validity, interpretation or scope of the agreement under which Arbitration is sought ? shall be submitted to and ruled on by the Arbitrator.
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.