Business Conflict Blog

The mediation scene in Italy sometimes seems like the upper balcony at La Scala:  Lots of opinions snd shouting but uncertain direction or authority.  Happily, Italy is graced with some real mediation leadership, some of whom are young, enegetic, persistent, articulate and smart.  One such is Alessandro Bruni.

Alessandro has recently posted a two-part article on the current state of mediation in Italy – post-lawyers’ strike, post-European Directive — that is informative and illuminating.  It can be found here and here, and it is hoped that all those interested in this vital part of the legal and economic European scene will devote attention to it.

Tags: Mediation, Public Policy

The tireless Hanna Tuempel of the Dispute Resolution Services of the International Chamber of Commerce reminds us that the 7th ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition takes place in Paris on February 3-8, 2012.

In the competition, law students are faced with complex interational commercial problems that they must attempt to resolve by mediation conducted by the ICC’s ADR Rules.  Around 60 student teams and over 120 professional mediators are expected to participate in around 200 mock mediation sessions.  Students’ performance is evaluated by some of the world’s leading dispute resolution specialists who participate in the competition as judges.

Registration is now open.  If you attend, can you let us know how it went?

Tags: ADR Institutions, Mediation, Teaching, Training

The 15^th meeting of the UIA World Forum of Mediation Centers was held March 11-12 in Athens.  About 130 people attended, many of them Greek attorneys, by far the largest assembly in this group’s history.

The meeting took place about a month after the enactment in Greece of a mediation law consistent with the provisions of the European Directive, making it timely for the many Greek lawyers who attended. 

Here are brief reports on some of the panels at the Forum: Read more »

Tags: ADR Institutions, Mediation

I have had Friday night tickets to Yankee Stadium for about 15 years and sit up, up, up in the top with a bunch of other cheapskate Yankee fans.  One thing I’ve learned is that these folks aren’t shy about saying just what they feel.  Often at Yankee Stadium there aren’t four umpires to a baseball game — there are 51,498.

Well I have to tip my Yankee cap to the Italian lawyer’s union, Organismo Unitario dell’Avvocatura.  On Karl Bayer’s terrific blog Disputing there is a recent guest post from General Electric’s terrific lawyer Michael McIlwrath, reporting that the union is calling a national strike to protest the enactment of a law mandating mediation.  You read it right — in order to protest against a law to ease courts’ backed-up caseloads, the lawyers want to back up the courts’ caseloads.  And they don’t mind telling their clients that they refuse to work next week because they are concerned about the possibility their cases might settle on terms acceptable to their clients.

I guess you know where these guys stand on the issue, right? Read more »

Tags: Courts, Mediation, Public Policy