Commercial Mediation

We mediators need to market our wares, just like the fruiterer at my local Sunday Farmers' Market when he calls out prices from behind his stall. Increasingly some mediators are choosing to do this…

Recently, during a lull in the action in a tort mediation, I was drawn aside by an insurance representative I see frequently. He had concerns about my “style” as a mediator. “Every mediation it’s the…

I come from a Western mediation tradition that argues strenuously for neutrality and impartiality in a mediator. Indeed, one of the first questions lawyers will ask when hiring me is whether or not I…

The relationship between growth and the combination of knowledge and human capital is no surprise. The economic environment is fast changing and technology driven. The global economy is already what…

I’ve been working in this field for more than 20 years and one thing that I’ve observed with genuine curiosity over that time is the sniping from various quarters that what I (and others with…

To paraphrase Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that mediation is confidential. Go on any training course, listen to any mediator's opening speech, and the secrecy/privacy of the…

Many have tried but all have failed to implement a definitive single enforcement mechanism for cross-border mediated settlement agreements. This lack of any coherent method of enforcement is widely…

Mediators often talk about the power of framing their own language and reframing the language of parties and others in mediation settings. For example, mediators may frame their comments in neutral,…

“Thank God for the last minute; otherwise nothing would ever happen.” This old saying rolls through my mind as I sit to type this on my iPad in the departures lounge at Toronto's Billy Bishop Airport…