Public Policy Section
I thought that teaching the Kavanaugh hearings in a careful and respectful manner a few weeks ago would be the biggest teaching challenge of the semester. I was wrong. Each of the described four impulses gives rise to tensions in negotiation: the need to compete and claim, the impulse to cooperate and find common ground, the drive for pragmatic and technically competent solutions, and the push for a moral basis in solution-making. Thanks to the 2017 federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, (“TCAJA”), divorce lawyers and mediators know that December will be a busy time and some of us may be working right up to the close of the courthouse on Monday, December 31st. It does seem, as we move comfortably into the 21st century, that the earth and the inhabitants within are in constant process of adaption. As a non-lawyer who teaches in law schools, I have been brought into the “justice” conversation many times. I am asked: How can you be sure your online systems will deliver justice? This chapter focuses on areas of ODR that are likely to involve attorneys, Attorney involvement in ODR tends to be for more complex and substantial disputes, such as resolving all divorce issues or settling an estate or resolving ongoing business issues. These are areas of “integrative” ODR practice, where there are multiple issues and, commonly, a continuing relationship. This article discusses how cooperation can be enhanced through a transdisciplinary approach to water negotiations, refusing to accept tired cliches and really talking. There are many keys to reaching possible agreement. The list includes, among others, discovering not incompatible interests, soothing a hurt relationship, or finding a common enemy. Uncovering a transcending vision can accelerate and amplify the coming together of contending parties. Vision helps achieve agreement. I was a fan of Facebook from my first login. I registered right after it opened to the public in 2006, and I led most of my friends onto the platform. I am now choosing to leave Facebook. In our mediation efforts, once we are in the realm of “public policy,” we are inevitably poking our noses into questions of intergenerational equity and “governance” and how authentic collaboration can be achieved or improved. According to Alexa.com, Mediate.com is most visited and most linked dispute resolution website. See the new data here! This article is to give an over view of the use of disability mediation and a case study. The article will highlight some of the benefits of utilizing specialist mediators, confidentiality and why disability mediation works. There’s recent discussion in urban planning journals about the way professional city planners should be educated today. Having a conversation about planning in advance prevents many community-conflicts down the road. These are dark times, especially if you are part of the loose community of people who by virtue of nature and/or nurture, are of a mediative persuasion. Although our digital devices have certainly made life more convenient, they’ve also made it more fast-paced. I follow the choroeographies and patterns of the craft we call conflict management, but every once in a while I help people really step out of the proverbial box they are in and discover (or stumble on) a peculiar new solution that seems to fit perfectly. Those are the golden moments I live for. Intermediaries, honest brokers, and would-be peacemakers have much to learn from warfare. In fact if you want to understand mediation, learn about war. This is the complete interview by Robert Benjamin with Howard Bellman, a long-time leader in the field of labor-management mediation and mediation in the public sector generally, filmed as part of Mediate.com's 'Views from the Eye of the Storm' Video Series. This is the complete interview by Robert Benjamin with Doug Yarn, a leading conflict resolution academic, filmed as part of Mediate.com's 'Views from the Eye of the Storm' Video Series. After 911, our lives changed seemingly forever. No longer a safe, secure, innocent society, Americans have come to a tipping point. Frank E.A. Sander ’52, a longtime Harvard Law School professor and a pioneer in the field of alternative dispute resolution, has died. He was 90. This is the complete interview by Robert Benjamin with Larry Susskind, a leading public policy mediator, filmed as part of Mediate.com's 'Views from the Eye of the Storm' Video Series. Guerilla warfare is unconventional. Instead of relying on large, slow moving armies and doctrines of overwhelming force, guerillas depend on invisibility, highly portable weapons, quick ambushes, booby traps, and hundreds of pressuring tactics that achieve practical offensive or defensive results. This is the complete interview by Robert Benjamin with Peter Adler of Accord 3.0 and Past-President of The Keystone Center, filmed as part of Mediate.com's 'Views from the Eye of the Storm' Video Series.
Public Policy & Environmental Articles
Heartbroken in Pittsburgh
Bringing Down a Giraffe
Don’t Dread Divorces this December
Conflict in the 21st century- a revised look at our biology
Justice
Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) for Lawyers
Conflicts over groundwater and aquifers profiled in recently-published book: Advances in Groundwater Governance
The Exceptional Power of Vision
Leaving Facebook
Lessons from the Iroquois
Comparative Data on Mediation Websites: Most Visited and Most Linked
Disability Mediation : An Overview
Planners are No Long Generalists with a Specialty
The Gang of Fourteen
How to Take a Scientific Approach to Improving Employee Productivity
The Mann Gulch Fire
The Ghosts of Melos
Interview with Howard Bellman
Interview with Doug Yarn
Splitting America Redux: Implications for Keeping our Kids Safe
In Memoriam: Frank E.A. Sander, pioneer in ADR (1927-2018)
Interview with Larry Susskind
Eye of the Storm Leadership: Guerilla Bridge Building
Interview with Peter Adler
