“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves. . . Do not now look for the answers. . . At present you need to live the question.” Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet At the heart of the idea of mediation is the aim of…

How do you get people to eat more fruit and less junk food? How do you get more people to agree to donate their organs? How do you get more people to engage in cross-border mediation? I’ll come back to food and organs shortly. Let’s stay with mediation for a minute. Within Asia, Hong Kong,…

This blog entry has its immediate origins in a passing comment by a mediation and university colleague. That colleague had just returned from a mediation and I – perhaps somewhat flippantly – asked whether justice had been done (the area of his work was employment mediation). His reply was simply to the effect that “the…

I am indebted to my friend and fellow mediator Mark Lomas QC for sending me the following email recently: ‘I have come across what I think may be one of the earliest recorded mediations in England, and conducted at the highest level. An Italian called Tito Livio dei Frulovisi wrote an account of the life…

The Problem: You think that your client’s pain is so severe and different than the typical client that you value the case substantially higher than the other side will pay. The Solution: Understand what “category” your adversary has put your case in and either accept it or try to create a new category of value….

Faithful readers will recall my posts here and here mentioning the failed mediation relating to the international effort to reach an agreement on the distribution of some $9 Billion in assets remaining from the Nortel insolvency. The Ontario Courts are now struggling with the fallout from that failed mediation. This week saw the release of…

Down here in New Zealand it’s high summer and most of the country will spend until the end of January at the beach. I remember, when I was still at my law firm 10 years ago, the feeling of brief respite at this time of year before having to put on my boots again and trudge…

Every month I write on the 25th. Today is different. Today is Christmas! Posting during Christmas makes my job even more challenging. Regardless of religion and national boundaries, this period of the year magically turns people into more generous and helpful human beings, which goes well with the overall mediation concept. In addition to the…

Mediators often talk about the power of framing their own language and reframing the language of parties and others in mediation settings. For example, mediators may frame their comments in neutral, constructive and future-focused language. They may reframe party statements to detoxify offensive or destructive language or to create a shift from the negative to…

How many times have you confronted the mediator before the session begins with this question: “You’re not going to do a joint session are you? I don’t l think it will be productive.” The conventional wisdom in such a request is to avoid a moot court debate in which counsel are forced to advocate strong…