Diversity, Bias, Gender, And Race In ADR: A Hard Fight To Level The Playing Field (3/08/10)
Diane J. Levin
As I was getting ready for the start of the mediation training I was teaching, one of the participants, just arrived, approached me to tell me to get him a cup of coffee. Despite my power suit and the flip chart markers in my hand, he had mistaken the lead trainer for a member of the support staff.

After How Much Training Can You Call Yourself A Mediator? (3/01/10)
Tammy Lenski
Diane Levin, who facilitated the latest episode of our new collaborative podcast, Cafe Mediate, launched conversation with that very question. Diane, Amanda Bucklow, Jeff Thompson, Vickie Pynchon and I dove in to answer and we weren’t shy with our opinions.

Negotiating With Feeling One More Time (2/22/10)
Victoria Pynchon
Helping law students master the skills necessary to mediate civil harassment cases last week put me in mind of two recent items -- the e-Discovery Dystopia video posted over at Commercial ADR ( The Horror, The Horror); and, Jared Lanier's new book, You Are Not a Gadget: a Manifesto excerpted this month in Harper's.

The Case For Extended, Integrated Mediator Preparation (2/08/10)
Tammy Lenski
A few years ago, I and my Woodbury College faculty colleagues Susanne Terry and Alice Estey published an article on mediator training and preparation in ACResolution. Last week’s Cafe Mediate podcast got me thinking about that article again – it’s content is still valid and the topic still timely. So, with my colleagues’ agreement, I’m posting an updated version of the article here.

Flourish In 2010 Without Changing Anything Other Than Providing Your Workforce With Negotiation Training (12/14/09)
Victoria Pynchon
I've taught in-house negotiators and corporate executives negotiation skills and I can tell you that not a single participant thought they were too negotiation-savvy to benefit from the training. Just let me say this. It's not rocket science. But not enough business executives and managers and not nearly enough lawyers know the basics necessary to get the best deal available to them.

The Why’s Have It: Teaching Curiosity For Effective Negotiation And Mediation (11/16/09)
Diane J. Levin
What makes Deepak Malhotra’s and Max H. Bazerman’s 2007 Negotiation Genius: How to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Brilliant Results at the Bargaining Table and Beyond so highly readable are the memorable anecdotes of real-world negotiations it contains. Among my favorites is one that concerns a colleague of the authors, a “negotiation genius” identified by his first name only, “Chris”.

How To Manage Your Negotiating Team From Harvard Business Review (8/31/09)
Victoria Pynchon
The last time I trained an in-house legal department, I asked every group manager this question: if I could leave a silver bullet behind, what would it be?

Mediation Credentialing: What About Mediation Trainers? (6/29/09)
Diane J. Levin
Much discussion has taken place of late about credentialing or certifying mediators or what it means to prepare mediators for competent practice. All too often, number of hours of mediation training serves as proxy for proficiency and skill.   3 Comments

Get Busy, Get Paid! How to develop a financially successful mediation practice: a review (6/11/09)
Tammy Lenski
I had a chance to view this video last week and recommend it for a whole host of reasons. It covers important topics like target markets, market niches and market differentiation in a straightforward, thoughtful way. It challenges you to put the work into understanding what you have to offer. And Lowry sets the stage well for successful practice-building with his practice development pyramid.

Preparing Mediators For Practice: Mediation Training Or Mediation Education? (5/25/09)
Diane J. Levin
Recently the alert I set up to monitor appearances of the keyword “mediation” in Twitter posts pointed me to the following message: “Just got back from Civil Mediation Training (30 hrs) to be a Qualified Neutral”. The message took me aback. 30 hours? To be a “qualified neutral”? Qualified? For what?   1 Comment

Development Of Commercial Mediator Skills Training In England And Wales (4/13/09)
James South
The UK mediation market has developed organically, both in a self-regulatory sense and in the development of training programmes and growth of the market in general. This compares with the development of mediation in other international jurisdictions where regulation and standards have tended to come before the mediation market is established.   2 Comments

Marital Mediation For Family Mediators (4/07/09)
John Fiske
If you are a family mediator, you might expand your practice to offer mediation to help couples stay married. The process, called “marital mediation,” uses the specific settlement focus of mediation to preserve a marriage in ways not attempted by family therapy. The process uses your family mediation skills to help couples negotiate new terms for their marriage. Couples may use mediation to enter into a written post-marital contract defining their own solutions.   1 Comment

The Best People For The Worst Places (11/17/08)
Richard Barron
From the end of World War II through the end of the 20th Century approximately 3.3 million people were killed in intrastate conflicts and over 16.2 million were killed in intrastate civil wars! Most people read those numbers, shake their heads, and move on to the next item. A very few people stop and decide that they must devote their lives to modify this proclivity of our species to kill each other on an incomprehensible scale for generally indefensible reasons.

Selecting The Right Negotiation Training (10/27/08)
Joshua N. Weiss
In this podcast Josh interviews Melissa Manwarring, about how to select the right negotiation training and how to get the most out of it when you attend.<

Building Bridges Between Psychology And Conflict Resolution – Implications For Mediator Learning (10/21/08)
Kenneth Cloke
While it is, of course, both necessary and vital that we recognize the key differences between the professions of psychology and conflict resolution, it is more necessary and vital, especially in these times, that we recognize their essential similarities, collaborate in developing creative new techniques, and invite them to learn as much as they can from each other.

Defining 'success'; in dispute resolution training (9/23/08)
Geoff Sharp
Just out from John Wade at Bond University in sunny Queensland - a must read for anyone who dabbles in mediation training: Defining “success” in negotiation and other dispute resolution training."Once upon a time in the far off kingdom of Learningland, three negotiation courses were held during the same week in the capital city Rarelyfail.Course A was held in the Hilton Hotel, with delicious food and three speakers. Two of the speakers were famous practitioner negotiators who...

New York Court Establishes Modest Statewide Mediator Training Requirements (8/13/08)
Keith Seat

The New York state judiciary issued its first statewide mediator training requirements to be on court rosters, requiring 24 hours of basic mediation skills training and another 16 hours relating to the types of cases to be referred. The rules also set standards for neutral evaluators, requiring five years of substantial experience as a judge or practicing lawyer in the kinds of cases being referred. Continuing legal education was set at six hours every two years for both mediators and neutral evaluators. The rules clarify that a person qualifying as both a mediator and neutral evaluator may act in both capacities in the same case.

Law.com (July 24, 2008)

Negotiation: The Disconnect (7/21/08)
Nancy Hudgins
I’m seeing a disconnect between what’s being taught to current law students about mediation and what the best negotiation professors are advocating versus what’s actually taking place in front of me in many mediations.Current teaching. Last Spring, the ABA’s Dispute Resolution Committee held a mediation competition for law students. (Quinnipiac University School of Law’s team won, which I wrote about here.) The ABA’s scoring system gave the highest marks...

What Is Conflict And How Do We Approach It? (6/16/08)
Alan Sharland
This article explores the way mediators view conflict-as inevitable, with the potential for both destructive and constructive responses.

Too many mediators, not enough mediations: is it fair to keep training neutrals with career prospects so grim? (6/10/08)
Diane J. Levin
Too many mediators, not enough mediations: is it fair to keep training neutrals with career prospects so grim? Last summer the Southern California Mediators Association posted to its blog an essay by mediator Christine von Wrangel provocatively titled, “Mediation: A Lucrative Career or a Ticket to the Poor House?“, a polemic directed against the many universities and training programs raising the career expectations of hundreds of mediator-hopefuls: Almost every...

Listening (5/13/08)
Alan Sharland
The purpose of listening in conflict resolution is not for the listener to get ‘the facts,’ but to support the speaker in understanding their own thoughts and feelings about the destructive conflict they are involved in.   2 Comments

Optical illusions as a training tool for mastering negotiation and conflict resolution skills (12/11/07)
Diane J. Levin
As a trainer of negotiation and conflict resolution skills, I love using optical illusions to demonstrate the fallibility of our perception. They alert us that our senses can be unreliable and susceptible to influence. And they remind us that it is always possible to see things differently. The ability to be alert to errors in thinking and judgment that any of us are prone to is of course essential to anyone who is negotiating or resolving a dispute.Here are two optical illusions I was...

Mediation and National Security Personnel System (NSPS) Pay for Performance: Can The Pitfalls Be Avoided? (12/10/07)
Rick Voyles, Carol Rice
The implementation of Paybanding – “Pay for Performance” is happening now. Congress has enacted the National Security Personnel System (NSPS) into law with total implementation by all government agencies and military components 2009. Based on the guidelines and expectations set out by the National Security Personnel System, managers and employees now have greater demands for accountability placed on them than at any other time in history. Will mediators be ready for the sharp increase in complaint cases that will be referred to them?

CR Competencies, Learning Assessment, & Pedagogy Cites (10/01/07)
John Windmueller
At a recent symposium I presented on the topic of defining, teaching, and assessing conflict resolution competencies. The symposium’s organizers videotaped the panel, and I’ll post the footage when it becomes available, but in the meantime, here’s the bibliography handout I compiled for the talk: CR Competency, Learning Assessment, & Pedagogy Cites Anderson, L., & Krathwohl, D. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of...

Take A Skill-Pill (9/23/07)
Geoff Sharp
So this looks cool...Skill-Pill is a short burst of bite sized skills delivered by video to your cell phone, blackberry, video iPod or smart phone just before the big event to get you in the zone.Going into a big negotiation or mediation? Take a 2 minute skill-pill in the taxi on the way.Demo here