An attorney keeps her client files on the hard drive of her laptop. These files include confidential and sensitive client information, and attorney-client communications. Leaving a dentist appointment, she discovers that her car's windows have been smashed and that the property inside the car -- including her GPS and her laptop -- have been...
This post continues a discussion of some recent court opinions concerning the enforceability of settlement agreements reached during mediation, but subsequently disowned by one of the parties. In Williamson v. Boehringer-Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals (N.J. App. Div. A-6291-10T1, March 12, 2012), plaintiff sought damages from her employer for alleged violations of the New...
It is uncomfortable for all concerned when a party to a mediation disowns the "settlement" purported to have been reached and challenges the enforceability of the writing made at the mediation session. A previous post discussed a New Jersey case in which the mediator offered testimony as to whether there...
Med-Arb and other hybrid processes have been received with reluctance in the United States and UK, mainly because of ethical concerns of the arbitrator. Outside of common law countries, however, the legal culture has been more welcoming to the involvement of an adjudicator -- whether a judge or an arbitrator -- in...
The 16th meeting of the World Mediation Forum of the UIA was held in Lisbon, Portugal, on January 27-28, 2012. It was very well attended; Co-President Colin Wall noted that attendees came from 31 countries. A panel on mandatory mediation brought out some interesting recent developments, including a game-changer in Italy. ...
At the recent Annual Meeting of the CPR Institute in New York, Cornell Professor David B. Lipsky presented some of the results from a recent survey of the Fortune 1000, comparing the current use of ADR with the use that was reported in a similar survey in 1997. The results...
Molly Klapper's book Definitive Creative Impasse-Breaking Techniques in Mediation features an insightful and practical contribution by Dwight Golann about "insulting" opening offers or demands. He suggests why they are made, how they can be conveyed by a mediator, and how they can be converted to useful negotiations. ...