The second post on Molly Klapper's book, Definitive Creative Impasse-Breaking Techniques in Mediation, focuses on a deceptively simple and profoundly wise short essay by Laura Kaster, Addressing Impasse by Helping the Parties Value the Case. She opens her piece with a "much overlooked but obvious" point: "Settling or mediating a...
A few years ago I fell head-over-heels for a recording in which a beautiful vocal group -- Chanticleer -- performed a beautiful 20th Century work -- Franz Biebl's Ave Maria -- and I offered it to readers of this blog by way of greetings of the season. Two years have passed and my cyber-friendships have...
Just before Molly Klapper's recent and much-mourned death, the New York State Bar Association released a wonderful book she had worked hard to edit: Definitive Creative Impasse-Breaking Techniques in Mediation. The volume contains many useful contributions from extraordinarily accomplished mediators and trainers. This and the following posts will highlight some...
The mediation scene in Italy sometimes seems like the upper balcony at La Scala: Lots of opinions snd shouting but uncertain direction or authority. Happily, Italy is graced with some real mediation leadership, some of whom are young, enegetic, persistent, articulate and smart. One such is Alessandro Bruni. Alessandro has recently...
Mediators are trained to detect subtle opportunities for value-adding integrative outcomes: separating positions from interests, offering out-of-the-box suggestions, and looking for ways that the parties can find mutual benefit. For me, that ended in an early-career EEOC mediation where the ADA claimant, having been offered every accommodation to her disability, refused to withdraw...
The Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb) has sold its dispute resolution provider service, IDRS Ltd., to the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CeDR). Both organizations see the sale as the beginning of a closer, mutually beneficial, relationship. ...