No sooner had the virtual ink dried on my post about a new ADR health care blog than I received a delightful message about a new dispute resolution podcast — this one with a distinctly international flavor.

International Dispute Negotiation, presented by the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution (CPR), explores ways professionals from different countries and backgrounds approach dispute resolution. The podcast is intended to help listeners understand the risks of disputes and shed insight on optimal ways of accepting, mitigating, and managing those risks in the real world, whether through mediation, arbitration, or litigation that arises far from home.

International Dispute Negotiation is hosted by Michael McIlwrath, Senior Counsel, Litigation for GE Infrastructure - Oil & Gas. Michael is based at his company’s headquarters in Florence, Italy, and is a long-time member of the CPR Institute and its European Advisory Committee.

Michael tells me that the podcasts are mainly recorded when he’s on the road in different countries, the editing is done in Florence, and the feed is through CPR’s website in New York.

This podcast is the latest addition to the World Directory of ADR Blogs, which tracks and catalogues blogs covering dispute resolution and negotiation. If you publish or know of a blog that should be added to the World Directory, 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 some simple submission guidelines.

Congratulations, Michael, and best wishes on the launch of this superb audioblog.

Earlier this week Vickie Pynchon at Settle It Now Negotiation Blog heralded the arrival of a new ADR blog with a special focus: health care.

The Healthcare Neutral ADR Blog is the creation of attorney and neutral Richard J. Webb, who brings more than 25 years of experience in the health care field to the mediation table — and to his blog’s subscribers. Richard has this to say about both the business he founded and the unique focus of his brand-new blog:

Healthcare Neutral, LLC provides alternative dispute resolution (or “ADR”) services exclusively for the healthcare industry. Richard J. Webb established this firm to address a growing, unmet need in the healthcare field for efficient and effective alternatives to the traditional litigation process. In this blogsite, you will learn about ADR, and how ADR can be used within the healthcare industry. You also will be introduced to useful links and topical discussions to help you better utilize ADR in your healthcare business.

I’d like to welcome Richard to the growing community of dispute resolution bloggers. Congratulations on what promises to be a great addition to the ADR blogosphere.

This week’s round-up of links and articles for mediators includes:

Jonathan Reitman, one of the New England mediation community’s most beloved and respected figures, asks, “Is there mediation fatigue?” as he considers what happens to a mediator’s ability to be compassionate when mediators are exposed on a regular basis to traumatic stories told by their clients. This is required reading for any mediator whose work routinely exposes him or her to suffering.

At MediationTools.com you’ll find “Impasse is a Fallacy“, an article by dispute resolution professional Lee Jay Berman with strategies for mediators to avoid stalemates and jump-start stalled negotiations.

Before I refer readers to online resources or tools, they must first meet a few criteria. It’s got to be stuff that’s readily available on the web (which usually means no registration or subscription required and preferably is either free or really, really cheap). I’m making an exception today for the Engaging Conflicts electronic newsletter (which is free but does require you to sign up with an email address to receive). Produced by Gini Nelson, this outstanding newsletter regularly features interviews with extraordinary individuals in the dispute resolution field. The most recent edition introduced newsletter subscribers to Emmy Irobi, a conflict resolution specialist now living in Poland, who once served as a child soldier in Biafra and has first-hand experience of the human tragedy that conflict and violence give rise to. Although I know that many readers want to reduce the influx of email, this is one newsletter that consistently delivers great content with information relevant to any dispute resolution professional.

In the “you’ve got to be kidding me” category is a story of an Illinois teenager punished with two detentions by her public elementary school for — get this — hugging two classmates. (For full appreciation of just how dumb this disciplinary action is, watch this interview with the girl and her parents.) (Thanks to QuizLaw for the link. A caution to those of you with delicate sensibilities — QuizLaw in its post uses language that would land it a week’s worth of detentions, so careful as you click.)

In case you hadn’t heard, Tammy Lenski of Mediator Tech is offering for download free copies of the first chapter of her soon-to-be-released book, Making Mediation Your Day Job. Tammy is known for her wise advice, generously dispensed to readers of her blog.

At the Chronicle of Higher Education, read about one university administrator’s growing appreciation for the role of conflict resolution in addressing institutional disputes in “When Private Animosities Distort Professional Judgment“.

Finally, I close with a titillatingly captioned mediation-related news story: “Mediation ordered for topless bar owner, landlord“. Some mediators get all the fun cases.

R. David Donoghue hosts Blawg Review #133 at Chicago IP Litigation Blog. (Blawg Review, for you newcomers, is the weekly review of the best in legal blogging hosted each week by a different law blogger.)

Next week’s host is Eric Turkewitz who publishes the New York Personal Injury Law Blog. He’s invited legal bloggers to send along their submissions for consideration. And if personal injury law doesn’t get your pulse racing, no fear, since it won’t be Eric’s theme for this edition of Blawg Review. In fact, “racing” may indeed be the operative word, if the hints Eric has dropped are anything to go by.