Business Conflict Blog

A few years ago I fell head-over-heels for a recording in which a beautiful vocal group — Chanticleer — performed a beautiful 20th Century work — Franz Biebl’s Ave Maria — and I offered it to readers of this blog by way of greetings of the season.

Two years have passed and my cyber-friendships have broadened and deepened.  Yet nothing tops perfection, and so I invite you to treat yourself to five minutes of utter beauty by clicking here.  Very best wishes to you!

F. Peter Phillips

Just before Molly Klapper’s recent and much-mourned death, the New York State Bar Association released a wonderful book she had worked hard to edit: Definitive Creative Impasse-Breaking Techniques in Mediation.  The volume contains many useful contributions from extraordinarily accomplished mediators and trainers.  This and the following posts will highlight some of the best ones.

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Tags: Lawyers, Mediation, Teaching

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

Mediators are trained to detect subtle opportunities for value-adding integrative outcomes: separating positions from interests, offering out-of-the-box suggestions, and looking for ways that the parties can find mutual benefit.

For me, that ended in an early-career EEOC mediation where the ADA claimant, having been offered every accommodation to her disability, refused to withdraw the claim unless she was paid $600,000 — more than twenty times her salary. 

In mediation, as in life, money talks.  And Dwight Golann has recently reported empirical research backing up that conclusion.

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Tags: Add new tag, Mediation