Archive for the tag 'Lawyers'

New Apps! New Tech! New Ethics?

Posted by F. Peter Phillips on March 27, 2012 under Ethics, United States

An attorney keeps her client files on the hard drive of her laptop.  These files include confidential and sensitive client information, and attorney-client communications.  Leaving a dentist appointment, she discovers that her car’s windows have been smashed and that the property inside the car — including her GPS and her laptop — have been stolen.  She has not yet backed-up some of the data on the hard drive and cannot now duplicate the file for the client.

The client is furious.  The lawyer is mortified.  Is she also unethical? Read more »

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Useful Compendium of Essays in Mediation Impasse

Posted by F. Peter Phillips on December 23, 2011 under Mediation

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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Mohamed ElBaradei Addresses Opening Session of IBA Conference in Dubai

Posted by F. Peter Phillips on November 4, 2011 under Conflict Resolution, Human Rights, International

 The Annual Conference of the International Bar Association opened on Sunday night October 30, 2011, with an address by Mohamed ElBaradei, former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency and, with the IAEA, 2005 Nobel laureate.  He focused on the dynamic state of the Middle East and addressed both the rule of law as an incentivizing influence on the creation of the society in which we want to live, and the role of the lawyer as social engineer. Read more »

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ABA’s Public Civility Initiative

Posted by F. Peter Phillips on May 9, 2011 under Negotiation, United States

It is curious that, as formal training in private negotiation increases, the quality of public negotiation has fallen into such disrepair. 

Business people negotiating a private deal are trained to listen attentively, in order to discover their counterparty’s interests, and to devise beneficial options that accomodate them.  Yet listening is something one seldom observes in public legislative debate.  Adjusting one’s view on the basis of what one hears, practically never.

Why is that?  And might the ADR community have something to contribute to encourage creative negotiation of matters of public interest?  The Council of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution seems to have something to say about both those questions.

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