Mediation Lawyering

  Mediation has long been used as a method of resolving disputes. Indeed, the practice of combining mediation and arbitration by the same neutral has been traced back to ancient Greece and Ptolemaic…

                                                          In the beginning ... Back in the 1976 Pound Conference called “Proceedings of the National Conference on the Causes of Popular…

"The world is made, not found." (W Barnet Pearce) I had been a mediator for about 10 years before I heard parties' initial words described as their "opening statement." This may surprise some…

While it is obvious that law is significant in legal disputes, how the law is used is not so obvious. This piece uses Oliver Wendell Holmes's famous definition of the law as “prophecies of what the…

  [Picture credit: creative commons] Good Faith is part of the Mediator’s mantra. Our opening addresses are full of it and it is something we regularly remind parties and their lawyers is an…

I am not really one for elevator pitches. But I did hear one the other day about creating impact in a very short space of time, and I was struck by its relevance to mediation. Essentially, the…

  Mediation can be an intense experience for parties and their advisers. Often there is a lot on the line. In the substance there may be money, control, reputation, pride. In the process, there…

This is the first in a short series of how parties and advisers can best deploy the “assets” at their disposal in a mediation. Naturally, it is written from my perspective as a mediator, and so I…

  [Picture credit: creative commons]  Court cases are an important source of guidance for mediators, disputants and their lawyers. They remind us that the law casts a long shadow even when a…