Giuseppe de Palo and I first met in 1999 or 2000, when I was bowled over the first time I learned about his work with The ADR Center in Rome. Since that time, every occasion I meet Giuseppe I am reminded what a powerhouse of talent, ambition, energy and aspiration he is. Both his intellect and his physical energy make having a cup of coffee like saying hi to a tornado. His recent e-mail proves no exception.
ADR Center is now a member of JAMS International, and Giuseppe advises that “our ”mega’ project, ‘Lawyers and ADR,’ is about to come to an end.” If Giuseppe says it’s “mega,” you know we’re talking big.
And big it is. “Lawyers in ADR” comprises three connected, EU-funded projects to promote the purposes of the EU Directive on ADR. As Project Director, Giuseppe has created a web site to encourage greater sophistication in ADR by European lawyers; conducted a survey to gather data on the cost of not using mediation; published eight e-books in eight languages on mediation advocacy (the English language one authored by our hero Dwight Golann); and prepared a video on cross-border mediation that is currently being translated into 23 EU languages.
(If you want to count ’em up, that’s Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, English, French, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Irish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portugal, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish and German.)
In his spare time, Giuseppe has arranged an international conference to present the project’s products, offered training courses for EU lawyers on civil and commercial mediation; continued his teaching at Hamline; and grown wings.
(Just kidding about the wings….)
The project web site is an impressive piece of work,. Those of us who have labored on the Directive can only be thankful that Prof. De Palo continues his esteemable work to make it happen in Europe.