While meeting in Houston, how can mediators not assemble a program on \u201cEnergy Mediation in the Energy Capital\u201d?\u00a0 Pierre-Jerome Abric, General Counsel Litigation to the French company AREVA, moderated a panel including Murray Fogler, a trial lawyer in Houston; Dick Watt, an attorney\/mediator from Houston; and Raymond Albericht, Vice President, Litigation, at Enterprise Products Operating Company in Houston.\u00a0 Thus we heard from two providers of mediation and two users.<\/p>\n
Mr. Albericht distinguished energy mediation on two grounds \u2013 first, the selection of the mediator involves more topic-specific criteria.\u00a0 Second, the mediation process takes place among long-term players in a comparatively small world, and disputes should be resolved without \u201cburning bridges.\u201d\u00a0 That said, noted Mr. Watt, the mediation process itself is not unique in the energy field.\u00a0 Mr. Fogler\u2019s sole criterion for selecting the mediator is that the other side is comfortable with the selection and finds her credible.\u00a0 He has no problem with his adversary\u2019s deciding who will mediate.\u00a0 \u201cI just want to make sure they will listen to what the mediator has to say.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Watt emphasized that, in mediation, he does not want to spend time explaining a gas contract or the regulatory framework; he would hope the mediator would already know that and can focus on the specific problem.\u00a0 Mr. Fogler, on the other hand, wants someone with life experience and sagacity because, in his experience, the dynamics of a mediation succeed or fail through human interaction, not because of the pressure of legal concerns.\u00a0 Mr. Albrecht reported that his executives often seek non-attorneys, such as oil and gas engineers, as mediators.<\/p>\n
Mr. Watt values the willingness of a mediator to point out legal weaknesses of a position.\u00a0 He expects a mediator to press a party on the procedural or substantive weakness in their argument that counsel, either intentionally or unintentionally, has failed to convey to the client.\u00a0 The audience noted that this enters into an area of nuance \u2013 while everyone appreciates the mediator\u2019s correcting the adversary\u2019s misapprehension of the law, one is less sanguine when the mediator inserts a view that is different from the advice one has given to her own client.\u00a0 And there is always the risk of being perceived as offering legal advice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An informed discussion of dispute resolution issues that are unique to the energy industry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,14],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-1389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conflict-resolution","category-mediation","tag-mediation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}