Blog Archives
If You Build It Will They Come? An Empirical Study of the Voluntary Use of Mediation, and Its Implications
December 29, 2020
A generation ago American litigants did not often go to mediation voluntarily. Advocates of the process predicted, however, that as disputants became more familiar with mediation, they would opt to use it more often. But is this true? Virtually no data exists about how often litigants voluntarily choose to mediate legal disputes, whether mediation use varies in different kinds of cases, and what motivates litigants’ decisions whether to mediate or not. This article presents information gathered...
December 29, 2020
A generation ago American litigants did not often go to mediation voluntarily. Advocates of the process predicted, however, that as disputants became more familiar with mediation, they would opt to use it more often. But is this true? Virtually no data exists about how often litigants voluntarily choose to mediate legal disputes, whether mediation use varies in different kinds of cases, and what motivates litigants’ decisions whether to mediate or not. This article presents information gathered...
Letter to A Young Mediation Enthusiast
December 28, 2020
Like many other professionals, a higher degree or an additional title on the part of a mediator will certainly give the service provider and service users more confidence. That said, I am inclined to think that certain mediation skills such as the listening and empathy skills as well as the not-giving-up attitude have very little to do with degrees and certificates. How to connect with a party within a short period of time and how to remain patient after 10 hours of mediation is a challenge to all mediators....
December 28, 2020
Like many other professionals, a higher degree or an additional title on the part of a mediator will certainly give the service provider and service users more confidence. That said, I am inclined to think that certain mediation skills such as the listening and empathy skills as well as the not-giving-up attitude have very little to do with degrees and certificates. How to connect with a party within a short period of time and how to remain patient after 10 hours of mediation is a challenge to all mediators....
U.S. Divorce Rate Recently Low
December 27, 2020
From Yahoo! Sports: The divorce rate in the U.S. is the lowest it has been in 50 years, according to U.S. Census Bureau data analyzed by the Institute for Family Studies. “For every 1,000 marriages in the last year, only 14.9 ended in divorce,” Wendy Wang, the director of research at IFS, wrote in a post to explain the findings. “This is the lowest rate we have seen in 50 years. It is even slightly lower than in 1970, when 15 marriages ended in divorce per 1,000...
December 27, 2020
From Yahoo! Sports: The divorce rate in the U.S. is the lowest it has been in 50 years, according to U.S. Census Bureau data analyzed by the Institute for Family Studies. “For every 1,000 marriages in the last year, only 14.9 ended in divorce,” Wendy Wang, the director of research at IFS, wrote in a post to explain the findings. “This is the lowest rate we have seen in 50 years. It is even slightly lower than in 1970, when 15 marriages ended in divorce per 1,000...
COVID-19’s Lasting Impact on the Sports Industry: Financial, Legal, and Innovation
December 26, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has wrought unprecedented havoc across the globe. Every sector of society has been impacted and forced to change business as usual, to re-evaluate priorities and systems, and to innovate amid the unknown and possible lasting impacts of this threat to public health and commerce. Sport worldwide is also profoundly impacted. Since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020, nearly all competitive sports have been suspended, postponed, or cancelled,...
December 26, 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has wrought unprecedented havoc across the globe. Every sector of society has been impacted and forced to change business as usual, to re-evaluate priorities and systems, and to innovate amid the unknown and possible lasting impacts of this threat to public health and commerce. Sport worldwide is also profoundly impacted. Since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020, nearly all competitive sports have been suspended, postponed, or cancelled,...
How Many Different Positive Emotions Do We Experience?
December 24, 2020
Awe, compassion, love, gratitude… research papers and media stories about these emotions abound. Indeed, the past decade has seen an explosion in work on positive emotions — essentially, emotions that involve pleasant rather than unpleasant feelings. However, very little has been done to explore which distinct feelings, thoughts and motivations characterise each one, argue Aaron Weidman and Jessica Tracy at the University of British Columbia. In a new paper in Emotion, they...
December 24, 2020
Awe, compassion, love, gratitude… research papers and media stories about these emotions abound. Indeed, the past decade has seen an explosion in work on positive emotions — essentially, emotions that involve pleasant rather than unpleasant feelings. However, very little has been done to explore which distinct feelings, thoughts and motivations characterise each one, argue Aaron Weidman and Jessica Tracy at the University of British Columbia. In a new paper in Emotion, they...
The Latent Blossoming Of Remote Mediation
December 22, 2020
Mediators and disputing parties have come to appreciate the benefits of meeting online and are more comfortable with Microsoft Teams and Zoom. CREK and Modron Spaces offer platforms that are specifically targeted to dispute-resolution proceedings. Cross-institution collaborations, including the JIMC-SIMC Joint Covid-19 Protocol, provide for online mediation by default. These developments echo a growing appetite for the use of technology in mediation more generally reported in a study by the Singapore...
December 22, 2020
Mediators and disputing parties have come to appreciate the benefits of meeting online and are more comfortable with Microsoft Teams and Zoom. CREK and Modron Spaces offer platforms that are specifically targeted to dispute-resolution proceedings. Cross-institution collaborations, including the JIMC-SIMC Joint Covid-19 Protocol, provide for online mediation by default. These developments echo a growing appetite for the use of technology in mediation more generally reported in a study by the Singapore...
Recognising Trauma: Litigation and Politics are Harming Us
December 21, 2020
I write this in the aftermath of yet another mediation in which the protagonists exhibited symptoms of having been seriously traumatised by the litigation process to which they had been exposed. Depression, suicidal thoughts, anger, loathing, destroyed relationships, large amounts of money spent with no discernible value. And this was a commercial situation, not a family or neighbourhood conflict. It came to me recently that litigation (in all its forms) is a traumatic event for many people....
December 21, 2020
I write this in the aftermath of yet another mediation in which the protagonists exhibited symptoms of having been seriously traumatised by the litigation process to which they had been exposed. Depression, suicidal thoughts, anger, loathing, destroyed relationships, large amounts of money spent with no discernible value. And this was a commercial situation, not a family or neighbourhood conflict. It came to me recently that litigation (in all its forms) is a traumatic event for many people....
The Big Bang Theory of Communication
December 20, 2020
So if you are preparing for any kind of speech, remember that communication is tricky. To make your job easier, make sure you follow Grice’s Maximes. There are four of them: Maxim of qualityMaxim of quantityMaxim of relationMaxim of manner Designed by pch.vector / Freepik Their charm is that they are quite easy to work with. The outcome is, however, overwhelmingly different. The English philosopher Herbert Paul Grice proposed four maxims of communications for he described conversations...
December 20, 2020
So if you are preparing for any kind of speech, remember that communication is tricky. To make your job easier, make sure you follow Grice’s Maximes. There are four of them: Maxim of qualityMaxim of quantityMaxim of relationMaxim of manner Designed by pch.vector / Freepik Their charm is that they are quite easy to work with. The outcome is, however, overwhelmingly different. The English philosopher Herbert Paul Grice proposed four maxims of communications for he described conversations...
ABA’s Remote Work Opinion a ‘Major Step’ Forward for Mobility
December 18, 2020
An American Bar Association ethics opinion giving lawyers more flexibility to work remotely across state lines is a big step forward for attorney mobility in a profession where practitioners often feel tethered to states where they are licensed, legal experts say. The bar group, in a Wednesday opinion prompted by the effects of working remotely during the pandemic but likely to impact the profession long after, said lawyers can physically work in a state where they’re not barred,...
December 18, 2020
An American Bar Association ethics opinion giving lawyers more flexibility to work remotely across state lines is a big step forward for attorney mobility in a profession where practitioners often feel tethered to states where they are licensed, legal experts say. The bar group, in a Wednesday opinion prompted by the effects of working remotely during the pandemic but likely to impact the profession long after, said lawyers can physically work in a state where they’re not barred,...
