The Union International des Avocats have hosted the World Forum of Mediation Centres since 2002, and I have attended all but three of their meetings. It is a convivial crowd of well-informed, deeply committed and sociable folks who tend to meet at interesting (mostly European) venues. The meeting scheduled for Luxembourg...
A recent decision of the Supreme Court of Nevada addresses the question whether a party's ignoring a provision in a commercial contract requiring mediation prior to commencing litigation may be grounds for dismissal of the action. In MB America, Inc. v. Alaska Pacific Leasing Company, the court said it was,...
Of all the volumes on mediation -- many of them very good, some of them of great practical value -- few are "must-have" volumes, in my mind. One "must-have" is Dwight Golann's Mediating Legal Disputes. It is well-thumbed and as recently as last night I had occasion to pull it...
On December 10, 2015, the Oregon Supreme Court released an opinion in a case that required it, for the first time, to consider whether a client may assert a claim for legal malpractice relying upon factual allegations that reveal the substance of communications made in the course of, or immediately...
A recent trip to Turkey included a delightful visit at the offices of leading Turkish law firm Hergüner Bilgen Özeke and several of its members, including H. Tolga Danisman. Tolga and I met in the most recent convening of the UIA World Mediation Forum, in Amsterdam, and it was a...
Unmarketed, unheralded, and therefore largely unknown are the Model Standards of Conduct for Mediators, promulgated in 2005 by the ABA Dispute Resolution Section, the AAA and ACR. Even less well-known, one suspects, are the opinions of the Committee on Mediator Ethical Guidance that issue periodically interpreting those Standards. Two recent...
Also at the UIA Forum in Amsterdam, a panel on “Med/Arb: Myth or Reality!” was offered, complete with exclamation mark. The panelists were from the US and the UK, which seemed odd inasmuch as I had understood that the practice of med/arb -- that is, of wearing more than one...
