Business Conflict Blog

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

The indispensible blog Above the Law has recently posted a depressing bit of news.  Certain ticket holders to the 2011 Super Bowl could not be accomodated because the temporarily-installed seats that they purchased proved to be unsafe for use.  The NFL expressed its regret by offering the disappointed purchasers their choice of either (a) $2,400 in cash — i.e., three times the value of the tickets they purchased — or (b) a seat to any future Super Bowl of their choosing, plus round-trip airfare, plus hotel accomodations.

In any other context, this would be the opening offer of a negotiation and it would be a pretty good one.

In the context of American dispute resolution, however, it was an invitation to sue.  For $5,000,000.  Further information on the lawsuits filed by certain of these ticketholders can be found here.

I don’t have a lot of wisdom to impart here, just a sort of shake of the head.  One party sold something it later transpired to be impossible to deliver.  The other party received an apology and was offered a value far exceeding the original purchase.  In what other society would two such parties not talk, not discuss, not negotiate for more, but instead pay an attorney?

Tags: Courts, Public Policy

A reader has brought my attention an obituary that appears in today’s New York Times.  Eric Schmertz died on Saturday, December 18, 2010.  His life, as summarized by Dennis Hevesi for the Times, is quite a lesson for dispute resolvers. Read more »

Tags: Employment, Public Policy

The New York Times’ November 18, 2010 edition featured a letter by Carl Schiffman of Queens, NY, that brought out concerns that many of us in the problem-solving profession have entertained, concerning the limitations of the mediator’s role.  He wrote:

Mr. Obama’s campaign vow to rise above partisanship was much more than mere talk; he seeks to rise above all conflict and become the person who reconciles the divided parties: the Israelis and the Palestinians, the Pakistanis and the Indians, as well as the Democrats and the Republicans closer to home.

It is my serious concern that the president, far from being either aloof or humble, has all along thought of himself not as a political leader struggling to make his point of view prevail, but as a man of peace, with an almost divine mission.

This 75-year old liberal finds the possibilty that President Obama may not be in office after the next election surprisingly painless.  I find it entirely just that when a man is too good to fight, he should lose.

Mr. Schiffman challenges some of the core assumptions of problem-solvers.  Do we consider ourselves “too good to fight”?  Do we cast ourselves as “peacemakers,” as instrumentalities of the divine, while leaving to other, lesser mortals the task of advocating for justice?  Do we deserve to “lose”?  Can a public leader be a problem-solver while still leading? Read more »

Tags: conflict management, Public Policy