From the category archives:

Mediation

What's in your agreement to mediate? Confirming confidentiality before the mediation starts

October 11, 2009 Mediation

Confidentiality stands as a cornerstone of mediation practice. It encourages the resolution of disputes by allowing those in conflict to candidly discuss the issues they face, secure in the knowledge that what they say in the mediator’s presence cannot be held against them later. In pop culture parlance, what happens in Vegas, stays in [...]

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Grain of salt: how much does mediator behavior influence the outcome of mediation?

September 23, 2009 ADR Scholarship

Those of us who mediate like to believe that our skills and temperament influence parties who are poles apart to move toward resolution, reconciliation, or settlement. But how influential are we really?
My colleague, attorney and mediator Stephanie West Allen, steers readers toward an article by ADR academics James A. Wall, Jr. and Suzanne Chan-Serifin, “Civil [...]

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Mediation: not meditation, not medication, and definitely not arbitration

July 3, 2009 ADR

Yesterday the New Jersey Star-Ledger reported that the state’s Supreme Court “OKs mediation in custody disputes“.
The problem with the story is that the New Jersey Supreme Court did nothing of the kind. Instead, it held that parties to a matrimonial action can submit questions relating to child custody and parenting time to binding arbitration (PDF).
Was [...]

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Mediation credentialing: what about mediation trainers?

June 24, 2009 Mediation

Much discussion has taken place of late about credentialing or certifying mediators or what it means to prepare mediators for competent practice. All too often, number of hours of mediation training serves as proxy for proficiency and skill.  That is certainly the case in Massachusetts, which has a law protecting mediation communications from disclosure in [...]

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Lawyers are from Mars, clients from Venus: differing perceptions of mediation documented in new book

June 5, 2009 ADR Scholarship

After attending a breakout session at the 2009 ABA Section on Dispute Resolution Spring Meeting titled  “What Do Litigators Want from Mediation?”, I decided it was high time to ask “What about clients?“, writing a post that called for much closer attention to the needs of those directly affected by disputes. I’m glad I did, [...]

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In praise of joint sessions: mediator Geoff Sharp pays tribute to face-to-face negotiations

June 1, 2009 Cool Stuff on the Web

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
- Leonard Cohen
The past couple of years have brought energetic debate within the mediation profession, pushing mediators to confront questions about practice, professional identity, and the nature of mediation itself. One of the most controversial questions [...]

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Mediate.com CEO responds to questions about new Mediator Certification Program

May 22, 2009 Careers in Mediation

The following interview is reprinted with permission from the Mediate.com web site, with thanks to Mediate.com CEO Jim Melamed. No enhanced interrogation methods were used in the making of this interview. Please feel free to add your comments at the end of this post.

Mediate.com Certification Program: A Grilling of Mediate.com CEO Jim Melamed
Three of the [...]

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Preparing mediators for practice: mediation training or mediation education?

May 22, 2009 Careers in Mediation

Recently the alert I set up to monitor appearances of the keyword “mediation” in Twitter posts pointed me to the following message: “Just got back from Civil Mediation Training (30 hrs) to be a Qualified Neutral”. The message took me aback.
30 hours? To be a “qualified neutral”? Qualified? For what?
The persistence of the notion that [...]

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Mediate.com announces mediator certification program

May 21, 2009 Mediation

After over a year of planning and development, Mediate.com, the world’s best known resource for information and news about alternative dispute resolution and negotiation, announced today that it has taken the wraps off a Mediator Certification Program for well trained and highly experienced mediators.
Mediate.com describes the program this way:

Mediate.com first ensures that our Certified Mediators [...]

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

April 30, 2009 Attorneys and Mediators

At the recent ABA Section on Dispute Resolution spring meeting, I attended one program whose title promised an answer to the fascinating question “What Do Litigators Want?” when it comes to mediator practices.
All well and good, but the question I was most interested in was very different: “What do your clients want? ”
Alas, I never [...]

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