Networking, marketing, information sharing, conversation, and collaboration: no other online tool delivers more for professionals than the blog.

If discovering how to make the most of blogging is at the top of your list of New Year’s resolutions, then I hope you’ll join my colleague Tammy Lenski and me for “Building Buzz with Blogs: Internet Marketing for Dispute Resolution Professionals (Even If You’re Not a Geek!)“, a teleseminar to be held on four consecutive Mondays in January 2007, from 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. ET., beginning Monday, January 8. Click here to register.

(If you register by the end of the day today, December 31, 2006, you’ll receive the early bird discount. Side benefit: you’ll get to cross one item off that lengthy list!)

My friend Stephanie West Allen, who publishes Idealawg, one of my favorite stops on the internet, together with Julie Fleming Brown of Life at the Bar, came up with Lawyers Appreciate…, an inspired way to close out the year by creating the space for a chorus of voices around the legal blogosphere to express their appreciation.

I was tagged by another friend, Bob Ambrogi. Although it’s far too late to tag three successors as protocol requires, I’m grateful for the opportunity to contribute my own appreciation.

As I reflect on the past year and contemplate the arrival of the new one in just a few hours, what I appreciate tremendously right now–as lawyer, as mediator, and as human being–is the community that surrounds me. In the real world where I spend so much of my time, friends, colleagues, and neighbors sustain me. And out here in cyberspace, blogging has brought me in touch with remarkable individuals who inspire me, encourage me, enlighten me, and, most wonderfully, can make me smile.

I appreciate you all–fellow bloggers, readers, friends. Happy new year to you all.

On the last Monday of each year the hard-working and anonymous editor of Blawg Review announces the Blawg Review Awards for the best law blogs in a number of categories.

I feel deeply honored that Online Guide to Mediation was recognized this year as the Best Law Blog by a Legal Mediator.

Among the talented legal bloggers honored this year by Blawg Review were the following mediators or supporters of ADR:

• Attorney and mediator Robert Ambrogi for his collaborative efforts with Craig Williams on Coast to Coast (Best Legal Podcast) and for Blog Journalism for his work with Carolyn Elefant as editor of Legal Blog Watch.
• David Giacalone, Best Law Blog In The Public Interest for SHLEP: the Self-Help Law ExPress. (David, now retired from mediation, remains an enthusiastic supporter of ADR.)
• Recently qualified mediator Justin Patten, Best British Law Blog, for Human Law.
• Mediator and conflict resolution professional Arnie Herz for Best Mentoring Law Blog, Legal Sanity.
• ADR supporter Dan Hull with an award for Global Perspective for What About Clients?.

To see the entire list of recipients of the Blawg Review Awards, please be sure to pay a visit to Blawg Review.

Congratulations to all the award winners!

(With many thanks to Blawg Review’s editor not only for your kind recognition of this blog but for all your tireless work to produce Blawg Review each week and your ongoing support of law bloggers everywhere.)

Although traveling is fun, it’s certainly true that there’s no place like home. In both the real world and here in cyberspace, it’s great to be back.

To kick off my return to blogging, I’d like to share with you the latest additions to the World Directory of ADR Blogs:

www.todomediacion.com. www.todomediacion.com is the blog and web site of an enthusiastic and innovative team of mediators based in Seville, Spain, whose practice focuses on family and scholastic mediation, headed up by dispute resolution professional Isabel Medina. From the web site: “Somos un equipo joven de Mediadores con mucho entusiasmo y ganas de aportar nuestro granito de arena para la resolución de conflictos tanto en el seno de la familia como en el los centros escolares. A pesar de nuestra juventud tenemos ya una amplia experiencia en distintos campos de la Mediación. Isabel Medina es la Coordinadora de www.todomediacion.com.”

Sanns Mediation Services Blog. This blog posts information about mediation, arbitration, resolution, and family law in New Jersey. Published by mediator and arbitrator Marvin Schuldiner.

ADR Society at the University of Richmond School of Law Blog. Dedicated to building relationships between students and professionals in the disciplines of arbitration and mediation, the ADR Society of the University of Richmond School of Law publishes a blog which shares information and news of events for members, students, and faculty. The ADR Society provides CLE opportunities for the Virginia area and hopes to promote and further the use of alternative methods through education of both the local community and students.

If you wish to add your blog or someone else’s to the World Directory of ADR Blogs, please let me know. It’s a commercial-free site, and there is no cost to be listed. The Directory has information on submitting your blog and submission guidelines.

It’s that time of year…the time to look ahead, consider the possibilities a new year brings, and decide what will make a big difference to your business and your practice. It’s easy, of course, to make resolutions—it’s keeping them that can be the hard part!

One resolution you can both make and keep is to learn more about the power of the blog. One of the most powerful online tools, blogs can help you promote your business, build your network and boost your web presence. Best of all, they do so at little or even no cost and require no special technical skill or knowledge.

As more and more ADR professionals are discovering, blogs are an ideal online tool for both business marketing and for social interaction, producing conversation, community, and contact with prospective clients and referral sources.

My good friend Tammy Lenski, one of the blogosphere’s most respected ADR bloggers, and I are collaborating on a new program to benefit you, our dispute resolution colleagues. Launching in January 2006, this professional teleseminar program will give blogging newcomers a primer in blogging basics and prepare you to leverage blogging strategies to build your business. Based on what Tammy and I have learned in mentoring numerous other bloggers, we have designed a program with your needs in mind.

“Building Buzz with Blogs: Internet Marketing for Dispute Resolution Professionals (Even If You’re Not a Geek!)” will be held on four consecutive Mondays in January 2007, from 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. ET. Click here to register.

Each session focuses on a key topic to prepare you for blogging success. You’ll have a chance to learn all about:

• Session 1: Build Your Brand with an ADR Blog, January 8
• Session 2: Choose Your ADR Blogging Platform, January 15
• Session 3: Jumpstart Your ADR Blog, January 22
• Session 4: Write a Topnotch ADR Blog, January 29

To participate, all you need is a telephone. With registration, you’ll receive the dial-in information for the call(s), an audio recording of the teleseminar for your future reference, and supporting handouts with resources we recommend to make your blogging experience effective and successful. You may register for the 4-session series (your most cost effective option) or choose from among the teleseminars.

Tammy publishes the critically acclaimed blog, “Mediator Tech“, and is the founder and editor of a new collaborative blogging project, “Mastering Mediation.” I publish this blog, “Online Guide to Mediation” and am the founder and webmaster of the world’s first Directory of Alternative Dispute Resolution Blogs, which tracks and catalogues over 90 blogs from 15 countries.

Click here to register.

The World Directory of ADR Blogs has added four German language blogs to its catalogue. They are:

ADR-Blog. Published by mediator and attorney Marcus Brinkmann, ADR-Blog explores the themes of mediation, conflict management, and negotiation, providing readers with informative reflections on alternative dispute resolution issues and practice. It also contains a Listing of ADR Blogs created to track and draw attention to the ever-increasing numbers of German language blogs devoted to mediation and ADR.

DiaBlog. The imaginatively titled DiaBlog, published by Dr. Joachim Simen, provides up-to-date information, reflection, and commentary on mediation and dialogue.

Institute Sikor Blog. This blog offers readers information, news, and discussion regarding mediation, collaborative processes, nonviolent communication, and social change. Its guiding principle is straightforward: “Our vision is a world in which the needs of all humans count!” Published by trainers and mediators Marianne and Markus Sikor.

Konfliktblog. Through regularly published articles, it seeks to build understanding of and appreciation for mediation by exploring its chief themes of conflict and its resolution. Written by trainer and mediator Kirstin Nickelsen.

I’d like to acknowledge mediator and attorney Christoph Stroyer, who publishes the German language blog Master of Mediation, who was kind enough to alert me to the existence of DiaBlog, and also Marcus Brinkmann whose link to the Directory of ADR Blogs drew my attention to ADR-Blog, his Listing of ADR Blogs, and thence to the two other German blogs.

My deepest appreciation to these fellow travelers in the ADR blogosphere. Vielen dank!

What we do has impact. Every deed, every word.

In just 90 seconds, the video “Children See, Children Do” shows how powerful that impact can be when it comes to the children whose lives we touch.

This video is part of a public awareness campaign of Child Friendly Australia, an initiative of the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (NAPCAN).

If you want to make the world a better place (and who doesn’t), watch this short clip.

(Thanks to the blog Dumb Little Man for the link.)

The “vanishing trial” phenomenon is a crisis in the law, according to a recent article in the Boston Globe. Young trial attorneys aren’t getting the chance to build trial skills since purportedly few cases now go to trial.

Here’s the reason, according to the Globe:

Because of the high cost of going to trial, fear of unpredictable jury verdicts, and other factors, many cases instead are being resolved through settlements, mediation, and arbitration, which litigants often prefer to the emotional ordeal of going to court.

Help me out here. What exactly is the problem?

I took pen (or actually keyboard) in hand to write a letter in response, which the Globe published:

It’s too bad that you framed the phenomenon of the so-called vanishing trial as a problem and not a positive (”Few chances for lawyers to develop trial skills,” Page A1, Nov. 29).

There’s evidence to demonstrate that the decrease in trials is due to better case management practices by the courts, combined with the fact that so many courts now offer an array of dispute resolution mechanisms, such as mediation, which encourage the early and mutually satisfactory settlement of disputes. If fewer cases go to trial for these reasons, then our overburdened courts and litigants all benefit.

The article also unwittingly perpetuates the myth that television delivers to us daily that all attorneys do is litigate. While trial skills continue to be taught in law schools and are part of any attorney’s tool kit, these are not the only skills that our profession calls upon or that attorneys develop or law schools teach. The most important roles attorneys serve are as advisers, negotiators, problem solvers, and even healers of conflict. If fewer cases are going to trial, then it may simply mean that attorneys are doing their job in fulfilling these other roles.

The vanishing trial–a conjuror’s trick or a crisis in the law? What do you think?

I have written before of the power of online games as a medium for building social awareness and raising consciousness (”War games: digital technology provides medium for educating and influencing” and “USC students develop virtual game to bring real-world attention to Darfur crisis“).

According to this story reported on the blog Boing Boing, the Spanish organization, Mensajeros de la Paz (Messengers for Peace), in an effort to raise world awareness of the plight of abused and abandoned children, has created an online presence in the virtual world of Second Life in the form of a homeless teenager. A video clip is available at YouTube.

This week’s Blawg Review illustrates sublimely the creativity and literary powers that Blawg Review, the weekly review of the best in law blogging, has become so well known for.

Hosted by Colin Samuels of Infamy or Praise, Blawg Review #86 takes as its theme Purgatorio, the second cantica of the poet Dante’s immortal Divine Comedy.

Come see this divinely perfect edition of Blawg Review for yourself.

Geographic literacy is critical to our ability to understand the world we inhabit. Those who enjoyed last week’s post on the Upside Down Map which depicts the world from a whole new perspective will enjoy challenging yourselves with a game that tests your knowledge of world geography.

How geographically literate are you?

Please join me in congratulating London-based solicitor Justin Patten, author of the blog Human Law which explores the nexus among law, technology, and people, on successfully completing his qualifications as mediator.

Welcome to the mediation community, Justin.

Over the weekend, the World Directory of ADR Blogs gained two new additions to its continually growing catalogue. They are:

PGP Mediation Blog. Published by Phyllis Pollack, an attorney and mediator based in Los Angeles, California, this blog shares news, ideas, and reflections on mediation practice.

Ombuds Blog. With news and information for and about organizational ombuds, this blog is published by Tom Kosakowski, a university ombuds, mediator, and attorney based in Claremont, California. To the best of my knowledge, this is the world’s first blog to focus on the work of the organizational ombuds.

A friendly welcome to both Tom and Phyllis.

In case you missed the announcement last week, the World Directory launched a brand-new feature, a Reading Room where you can browse through the headlines of these blogs and others in its catalogue.

As always, if you wish to add your blog or someone else’s to the World Directory of ADR Blogs, please let me know. It’s a commercial-free site, and there is no cost to be listed. The Directory has information on submitting your blog and submission guidelines.

For those of you who monitor depictions of attorneys or negotiation in popular culture, this video of two lawyers negotiating brings whole new meaning to “getting to yes”.

(Caution: not suitable for workplace viewing.)

(Thanks to Boing Boing.)