Toward a Melding of War and Negotiation:

The Peaceful Warrior and the Guerrilla Negotiator

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Noon to 1 p.m. Pacific Time (call in at 11:55 a.m.)

Join ADRNC for the second in our Fall noon tele-seminar series, featuring well-known veteran mediator Robert Benjamin.

Mr. Benjamin will discuss his conviction that the mediation process maximizes the opportunity for people to reclaim decision making in difficult situations, as opposed to ceding undue authority and power to the professionals. As such, he is vigorous in his resistance to the notion of the "attorney-mediator" (as opposed to "mediator-mediator"), "recovering attorney," "collaborative lawyer," the mediator as spiritual guide, and the extent to which mediation practice has tended to veer off toward those brands in recent years. He also questions the validity and efficacy of many of the operating assumptions of mediation practice, especially in light of recent developments in neuroscience, evolutionary biology and psychology. He will question  the notion that the mediation and negotiation of conflict can be effectively marketed solely as an interest-based, collaborative problem-solving process based on principles of rational decision making, since there is a strong emotional and instinctual allure to war. He will discuss how this allure is hard to overcome or be effectively challenged or undermined by logic and rational argument.

Presenter

Robert Benjamin has practiced negotiation and mediation in all dispute contexts for more than 30 years and has maintained a full-time private mediation practice for close to 20 years. He is a Fellow at the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University's School of Law, an Adjunct Professor in Southern Methodist University's Conflict Resolution Program, as well as several other graduate programs. He presents and trains both nationally and internationally.

Having been trained and having practiced for many years as both a lawyer and social worker, Benjamin was initially drawn to mediation, after seeing firsthand how clients were often dis-served and fell through the cracks between the advice given by the experts of the varying professional disciplines.

Registration Information: To register, email Stacy Waters at adr@adrnc.net or leave a message at 650-745-3842.This free event is open to current ADRNC members only. Space is limited, so register ASAP. Not a member? Sign up today using Acteva's secure server.