I remember attending the first meeting of the Dispute Resolution Section of the American Bar Association, in Boston, in 1999. I was on a panel discussing Y2K, and absolutely everybody I had ever met in ADR was in attendance. Y2K has since moved on, but the ABA Dispute Resolution Section...
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 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...
The 15th meeting of the UIA World Forum of Mediation Centers was held March 11-12 in Athens. About 130 people attended, many of them Greek attorneys, by far the largest assembly in this group's history. The meeting took place about a month after the enactment in Greece of a mediation law...
I had a good chuckle at an article that appears in the current issue of Dispute Resolution International, the journal of the Dispute Resolution Section of the International Bar Association. Daniele Cutolo and Mark Alexander Shalaby discuss a case brought in Italy to test whether an Italian statute requiring mediation...
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...
My class in International Commercial Dispute Resolution at New York Law School is now finished, and each student was required to prepare a paper on a related topic of their choice. All were good, happily, and some students wrote on topics that readers of this blog may find useful. With their...