Comments on: What about clients? Time at last to consider what they want from mediation

By: Diane Levin

Diane Levin — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:17:29 +0000

Peter, thanks for your comment. I think that the disdain for negotiation – both the assisted and unassisted kind – is in part responsible for the negative views about mediation. It’s not just litigators who think that way. It’s cultural, at least here in America, where negotiation is all too often perceived as a sign of weakness or even a moral failing.

By: Peter Huang

Peter Huang — Sun, 17 May 2009 00:37:12 +0000

Very interesting post. I think the second point that you raised is particularly important. In my experience, many experienced litigators appear to have a very shallow (and sometimes wildly inaccurate) impression of what mediation is about. For example, I’ve met a few that seem to actually equate mediation with “surrender” and despise the process accordingly.

By: A new chapter for this blog | Making Mediation Your Day Job

A new chapter for this blog | Making Mediation Your Day Job — Thu, 07 May 2009 20:15:03 +0000

[...] What’s missing whispered to me in December when I read Geoff Sharp’s Five things I learnt this year (and should have known already). I heard another whisper recently while pondering Vickie Pynchon’s Separating the People from the Problem at the ABA DRS Conference. And the whisper grew louder as I caught up on my blog reading with Diane Levin’s What about clients? Time at last to consider what they want from mediation. [...]

By: Diane Levin

Diane Levin — Thu, 07 May 2009 14:07:47 +0000

Definitely…to be continued…

By: Mediator Jeff

Mediator Jeff — Thu, 07 May 2009 00:46:25 +0000

Ha!! Too funny considering email as the next big thing.

“Hey, maybe you, me, Geoff Sharp and Vickie Pynchon can submit a proposal together – a panel discussion on blogging, Twitter, and whatever surprises social media will have in store for us a year from now.” -sounds good to me. at the very least, it’s worth further discussion between everyone.

By: Diane Levin

Diane Levin — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:12:13 +0000

Hi, Jeff! Yeah, I know, interesting how the panel evaded my question. I think though that I may have gotten the real answer from the client in the row behind me. I hope that next year in San Francisco maybe, just maybe, there'll be something on Web 2.0. In a way I'm not surprised that blogging and social media got no attention at the spring meeting in NYC. Not when an article last year in Dispute Resolution magazine, musing on big changes in the ADR field over the last several decades, identified email as the Hot Big Thing. Yipes! Hey, maybe you, me, Geoff Sharp and Vickie Pynchon can submit a proposal together - a panel discussion on blogging, Twitter, and whatever surprises social media will have in store for us a year from now. The best part of NYC was meeting people like you in person, Jeff. It's why I came. Steve and I were really glad to connect with you. (He sends you his best, by the way. And so do I.)

By: Mediator Jeff

Mediator Jeff — Wed, 06 May 2009 00:21:28 +0000

Diane,

Too funny how you never got a straight answer.

Slightly off topic, but it is great to see the coverage all the bloggers have given the ABA Spring Conference… perhaps there will be something, anything on blogging or Web 2.0 in San Fran next year?

By: Diane Levin

Diane Levin — Mon, 04 May 2009 18:29:18 +0000

Clayton, thanks kindly for your comment and particularly for the reminder that we always have the option to “think outside the court”.

By: Clayton Gilman

Clayton Gilman — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:31:43 +0000

Hey Diane,
Outstanding and concise. I would also add one single yet defining point to your points. Let “clients” know it’s okay to “mentally divorce” themselves from traditionally accepted and ingrained legal methods of resolving issues. I’m getting more and more success by bringing it to the attention of participants that they can just “forget” the legal process and structure and come to a more “qualitative” and genuine “peaceful” result by stepping out of a structure that has “polarization” built into it from the start. The method for resolving disputes using legal processes is so ingrained people simply can’t get “outside the box” and consider “alternatives”. What’s worse, terms like “mediation” have the same connotation at arbitration or even “private trial” (as someone once told me) and so discussions with “consumers” about evaluative versus facilitative may well be “over their heads” until they are educated and briefed towards having an “alternative” mind set about solving, not just their current issue, but issues over the long term in American society.