Monthly Archives: May 2010

Resources online and beyond for the aspiring mediator

Posted on May 13, 2010 | 3 Comments

Connecting to ADR resources onlineGreetings to regular readers, new visitors, and to the members of the Mediation Works Executive Mediation Training, with whom I have the pleasure of working this week. To stimulate your curiosity and to encourage further exploration, I’ve pulled together a list of essential resources for aspiring mediators:

Mediate.com is always at the top of my recommended resource list. This premiere ADR site offers

Recommended mediation reading. The following posts recommend books in print and online articles for the mediation library:

Top ADR blogs. I know of no better resource for staying current with the latest issues in dispute resolution and negotiation than my fellow bloggers, who make it their business to keep abreast of essential news and trends. I collected my own list of essential bloggers to follow. You’ll no doubt find some of your own at the World Directory of ADR Blogs at ADRblogs.com, a site which tracks and catalogs dispute resolution blogs from across the globe, and one of my ongoing web projects.

Online discussion.

Mind and cognition. How people reach judgments and make decisions is of great interest to mediators. For intellectually curious mediators and negotiators interested in staying on top of the results of the latest research, here is a list of the best social and brain science blogs.

Self-awareness tools. Remaining vigilant for cognitive errors can be a challenge but is essential for effective dispute resolution practice. The following tools can help keep minds open.

Negotiation sites, blogs, and podcasts. A list of value-creating resources.

Mediation marketing. I only recommend one site: Dr. Tammy Lenski’s “Making Mediation Your Day Job“. Accept no substitutes. Tammy is the real deal, a successful professional mediator and author with an international reputation and the respect of mediators around the world.

Readers, if you have other suggestions, by all means please feel free to add them in the comment section below.

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Posted in Books for Mediators and Negotiators, Cool Stuff on the Web, Mediation, Online Publications and Articles on ADR

Mediation and law, strange bedfellows: time for us to start seeing other people?

Posted on May 9, 2010 | 9 Comments

In his recent Mediate.com essay, “Killing Mediation: The Specialized, Professionalized And Neutralized Mediator”, ADR personality Robert Benjamin pronounced mediation dead, naming the usual suspects responsible. (For those who enjoy a good whodunit, you may wish to read how Jeff Thompson, who plays a detective in real life in his work with the NYC Police Department, conducts his own investigation of Benjamin’s allegations.)

As the title of his article suggests, Benjamin is known for iconoclasm, a dramatic flair and a determined willingness to declare the emperor naked (or, in this case, deceased).

If you wash away the fake gore and other Hollywood special effects, Benjamin’s essay contains words of caution to be heeded. He invokes the great promise that mediation offers to consider and address a dispute across many dimensions, in all its astonishing complexity, through a participatory process in which “clients remain directly involved, not merely the objects of professional expertise and treatment”, and in which many issues and needs – legal, financial, interpersonal, emotional, psychological, and more – can be addressed. Benjamin warns that this promise may be compromised in the rush to specialization, citing the rise of “legal mediation” as but one example:

As mediators increasingly specialize in particular dispute contexts or limit themselves to particular practice approaches they close off the systemic focus that is the hallmark of mediation. Those who practice “legal mediation” in the business or legal context tend to use strategies and techniques that are more familiar to traditional case settlement conferences where the focus is solely on the legal solution. That narrow view is not wrong or bad, per se; in some circumstances it may be necessary. However, to have that approach become a matter of habit—or a rut—conditioned by the context in which the dispute is presented often precludes the use of other more creative strategies and techniques…

“Legal mediation” is distinguished from other kinds of mediation, suggesting that those outside law could not understand the nature of conflicts that arise in the legal context and that conflicts that occur in the shadow of the court actions are predominantly legal.

How narrowly we perceive the range of mediatable disputes. Too often mediation is framed as an only an alternative to trial, a dispute resolution mechanism within the machinery of the court, a last-ditch effort to settle a case.

That framework limits our ability to see the full range of possibilities and applications for our work. It’s like looking at the entire world of disputes through the cardboard tube left over after the toilet paper’s been used up. Suddenly your viewpoint has shrunk to a 1.5-inch circle.

There would be more opportunities for mediators if more of us recognized – and helped the public understand – that not every dispute arises in law or offers legal redress. Many disputes that lend themselves well to mediation lie beyond the reach of the shadow of the courthouse.

Perhaps it’s time to pause here, for a moment, and recall the expansive opportunities that mediation holds for those who are mired in dispute and who yearn or struggle to break free. Remember, too, that mediation can be used long before disputes arise, preventatively or diagnostically, to guide planning, negotiations, or dialogue.

Let’s set down the cardboard tube and take an unimpeded look at what’s possible, expanding our vision along with the proverbial pie.

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Posted in ADR, Mediation, The Future of ADR and Law

The sound of silence: listening between the lines

Posted on May 9, 2010 | 3 Comments

The sound of silenceSome cases you remember vividly; the impressions they leave are lasting.

The plaintiff, seated with my co-mediator and me, had just heard us convey the defendant’s final proposal. The plaintiff said, “I need a moment.” I asked if they (and I hope you will excuse me for using the pronoun “they” in the ungrammatical singular) wished to take a break to think about the offer. They declined and said, “No, let me sit here with you. But give me a moment to think.”

The plaintiff sat not for a moment but over the course of many moments – in silence for 20 full minutes. My co-mediator and I sat, looking at each other from time to time, witness to this inner struggle. So deep was the plaintiff’s concentration, so palpably serious, that we both felt humbled in its presence. Their focused concentration, and the accompanying silence, became a fourth person in that room. My watch ticked off the minutes. Into that silence of thinking and weighing, other, minute noises intruded. Around us, the building’s heating and ventilation system produced bursts of noise; my co-mediator’s stomach growled insistently; outside once we heard a siren wail. I could hear my breath, in and out, as we sat our patient vigil.

I knew that they’d reached a decision when suddenly I heard them exhale. “Yes,” they said, and the silence ended, as they thanked us for giving them the space to think.

Bearing witness to silent concentration was a profound experience. Later we discussed it, my co-mediator and I. The impulse to break that silence was strong at first. But as the silence lengthened, waiting became easier. Apart from sounds, too, there were other things to attend to. Their face, for example, spoke volumes about the progress of the struggle within, shadowed first by doubt and then growing lighter with certainty. Even in total silence, there is something to hear.

What reminded me of that long-ago case? I happened to hear an interview on NPR with acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton, a man on a quest to record the sounds of natural environments and to protect land from the intrusion of human noise. Watch the video on the page I’ve linked to; whether the cry of swiftly flying birds or the steady melt of snow as winter recedes, it’s astonishing how much sound our natural landscapes contain when the din of human activity falls silent. Listen closely to what remains.

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Posted in Mediation, Random Musings

The 40-hour mediation training: a good argument for regulating the private practice of mediation

Posted on May 5, 2010 | 8 Comments

Regular readers know that for some time now I have not supported the movement favoring formal licensing or credentialing for mediators in private practice. I have remained unpersuaded by most of the arguments that favor it and am concerned about the difficulties in design and implementation and the impact on multijurisdictional work. (If you’re interested, I’ve collected the arguments on both sides, pro and con.)

That is, until now. A number of incidents over the past several months have made me increasingly sympathetic to the concerns voiced by advocates of regulation, who see regulation as a way for the mediation field to safeguard quality, limit practice to the qualified, and reclaim control over determining who gets to call themselves a mediator.

Briefly summarized, here are some recent events that changed my mind:

Example 1

My colleague, Jeff Thompson, alerted me to new rules adopted by the Nevada Supreme Court for court-connected foreclosure mediation which establish minimum standards for mediator qualifications (PDF) and that unwittingly perpetuate the myth that lawyers are automatically qualified to mediate by virtue of their bar cards. To mediate foreclosure disputes in Nevada, a mediator must:

(1) Be authorized to practice law in the State of Nevada; or

(2) Be an experienced mediator (defined as “an individual who has participated in a mediation training program consisting of at least 40 hours of classroom and role playing and has conducted 10 mediations as a co-mediator or sole mediator”).

These minimal requirements can be waived “for good cause”.

It’s worth noting that various groups and public officials were cc’d on the order, including the Nevada Bankers Association, the Clark County Bar Association, the Nevada Land Title Association, but not, however, a single mediators’ association.

Example 2

An individual teaching a course in mediation at a university contacted me to ask about mediation training. This instructor wanted to know whether I thought taking a basic mediation training might be a good way for them to “get certified as a mediator”. Apart from a few classes on ADR in law school, this person had received no training in mediation and had no professional experience mediating. The department head who hired this individual thought that the law school degree was sufficient qualification. This is not the first time by any means that a university-level instructor has contacted me with a query like this.

Example 3

Recognizing that there’s money to be made from the growing popularity of mediation, an organization not in the business of providing ADR services offers a minimal mediation training led by someone who is not a practicing mediator. So popular are these “trainings” that they fill up quickly. Evidently unaware that a handful of hours of mediocre mediation training is not enough to qualify someone to mediate professionally, several recent “graduates” of this program have launched mediation practices.

* * * * * * * * *

If you’re a mediator, you should be worried. If you’re a member of the public that currently uses mediation services or may use such services one day, you should be worried, too. If you’re a student enrolled in a mediation course at the undergraduate or graduate level who hasn’t checked the qualifications of your instructor, or someone who took a mediation training without doing some due diligence, you should be worried as well. And whether you think these examples suggest that it’s time to move toward better regulation of the profession, or whether you disagree, I think there’s one point reasonable people can agree on:

The mediation field has got to do a far, far better job than it is doing right now to police itself, and to take a principled stand against practices that diminish our professional integrity and worth.

40 hours of mediation training do not automatically make you a professional mediator – or a mediation trainer or teacher.

Neither does possession of a bar card, law degree, or judicial gown.

This should be obvious to all, but it’s not. And so I am no longer confident that in the absence of regulation that we can succeed in countering myths and promoting best practices. I think it’s time at last to get serious about credentialing.

Thoughts?

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Posted in Mediator Certification and Credentialing