In preparation for next week’s Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association, I have been delighted to get to know a group of judges who will be offering a program on Saturday afternoon, August 7, on the use of ADR in Business Courts. One of them, Judge Steven I Platt of Maryland, maintains an interesting blog to which he has recently contributed a thoughtful article on the “why” of dispute resolution in business courts. Read more »
Many parties in mediation — and many of their counsel — consider that a “win” is a deal that gets them the number they asked for, or close to it. In fact that’s not so, and a mediator provides important value to disputants by assisting them to determine, in a claim that will go to trial in two years and subsequent appeal, what the “right” number is today.
Here are three easy steps towards assisting parties to value their claims.
I am spending this week in beautiful Silver Bay, New York, on the western side of Lake George. There, at a grand old historic YMCA summer camp, the New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) holds its annual summer conference.
Quakers are a “peculiar people” and proud of being so. But spending time with a whole nest of them coming from around the country and around the world is surely a blessing.
Many readers are familiar with the drawing of three mice looking at a wedge of cheese and drawing different conclusions as to the shape of the object, based on their positions and perspectives:
Well, when Quakers meet to conduct business they don’t vote or persuade; they share perceptions and senses of what the right thing to do might be, and let it float out there until the entire group is in unity with the right decision. Folks who have never watched this procedure or taken part in it themselves find it very difficult to understand, but the mouse drawing is as good an entry into it as any.
I just plain like the way Quakers think, how they approach problems. Here in Silver Bay, or in my small Quaker Meeting in Cornwall, New York, a matter will be raised in a meeting for business and a period of silence will ensue. Then someone will pipe up and say, in effect, “I see a rectangle here.” There will be a pause for several minutes, and someone will say “I see a square.”
At that point most folks would see a disagreement. But Quakers?
Quakers sense there might be a piece of cheese nearby.
Monday, July 12, is the cut-off date for Early Bird Registration for the ABA Annual Meeting in San Francisco. I will be speaking on a panel on arbitration, with such luminaries as Mark Trachtenberg, Deborah Rothman and Rob Friedman, who argued Jackson v. Rent-a-Center before the Supreme Court. (Honestly, sometimes I really am amazed at the clubs who will let in the likes of me!)
But a specially interesting panel is one that Lawrence D.W. Graves has assembled as Chair of the Dispute Resolution Committee of the Business Law Section: “ADR in Business Courts.”
The panel will be moderated by Chief Judge Ben Tennille of the North Carolina Business Court. Speakers include Judge Steven I. Platt of Maryland; Judge Ira B. Warshawsky of the Commercial Division, New York Supreme Court; Robert E. Margulies, who designed the 15-year old Complementary Dispute Resolution program for the Superior Courts of the State of New Jersey; Judge Elizabeth Stong of the United Stated Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of New York; and Vice Chancellor Don Parsons of the Delaware Court of Chancery.
Listening to these ladies and gentlemen discuss the court’s interest in clearing its docket, and their own commitment to helping commercial parties to resolve their disputes, should be a rare and valuable opportunity. Be there!
