IAM Blog

I look forward to welcoming you at our upcoming mediation session. As your mediator, it is my responsibility to remain as neutral as can be, conduct the process in a manner that is fair to everyone, and to help the parties talk and think about this dispute, hopefully concluding with a settlement.

I often draw strength from meeting ordinary people doing extraordinary things . . . their lives frequently embody a truth expressed by Mother Teresa, . . . [who] once said: “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”. . .

For the past fifteen years, I have been a strong advocate for mediation. Through some mix of optimism and arrogance, I have maintained the belief that all conflict can and should be resolved through a skillfully-managed mediation process. So it is with some...

Words matter. So in basic mediation training we teach neutral words and reframing.  But is our mediation lexicon stale and itself in need of reframing?

I wrote Agreed! for exactly the same reason Einstein wrote his theory of relativity: there was something that did not work in Newton’s theory. There are lots of ideas which, in my view, do not work in what we are usually taught about negotiation and mediation.

The day of mediation began with one of the lawyers scoffing that this was not an emotional matter at all and the family just needed to get over it. I brought him into the room with the family’s boxes (see picture) and responded “REALLY?”

Perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised by the whole Brexit affair. I’m not talking about the result of the vote itself, but about the referendum process, the behaviour it engendered, and its aftermath.

As we approach months of negotiations among the many parties involved in Brexit and Scotland’s place in Europe and, indeed, the UK, what techniques might we hope to see applied?

As a recap (or for new readers) Tom’s recent article titled “Insights on Mediator Practices and Perceptions,” outlines three areas of apparent regional divergence in mediation practice, arising out of the 2014 survey conducted by the IAM and the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, Pepperdine School of Law. The divergent areas include: (1) the relative use of joint session and caucus in mediation; (2) the way in which mediators handle information divulged by the parties in caucus; and (3) the extent to which mediators provide case evaluations and opinions.

As a recap (or for new readers) Tom’s recent article titled “Insights on Mediator Practices and Perceptions,” outlines three areas of apparent regional divergence in mediation practice, arising out of the 2014 survey conducted by the IAM and the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, Pepperdine School of Law.