I owe my recent participation in a very challenging project to my dear friend and mediation partner, Constança Madureira. For some time, she has been able to build a career as a lawyer and associate it with an extensive and respected professional background in the hotel and lodging industry. Having worked in top executive positions…
Last month, we had the presence of Ahdieh (Ati) Alipour Herisi in Brazil as a judge for the occasion of the CPR International Mediation Competition . Ati is a young, enthusiastic and brilliant lawyer and mediator who was born in Iran and lived, studied and worked in many different places such as Los Angeles, New…
On January 25th 2019 Brazil experienced its largest industrial catastrophe, the collapse of a dam from Vale, one of the world’s largest Mining Company. The disaster devastated the town of Brumadinho, in Minas Gerais. It was of such magnitude that, until March 8th, the day I write this post, there were 193 confirmed deaths and…
On first of January 2019, Jair Bolsonaro became Brazil’s 38th President. After years of economic, political and even a social crisis in Brazil, the right wing politician has the mission of unifying the country after the most polarized elections in our history. Similarly to what is happening in other parts of the world, the new…
In 1999, I had just returned to Brazil from the United States with a Ph.D. thesis on ADR when a mediator colleague invited me to attend and appraise a mediation session. I was eager to do that and observed, minute by minute, the rich communication interaction between him and the parties. At the end my…
The arrival of the internet age has posed many new challenges as a larger part of the economy has started to operate online and transnationally with a new emerging framework. After the spread of the global computer network and the rise of online business activities and operations, it became necessary for disputes between contracting parties…
Brazil is on its way to making lawyers mandatory on mediation procedures. Last month the House of Representatives approved a bill (PL 5.511/2016) that reads, in a free translation, “it is mandatory the presence of Lawyers in consensual dispute resolution procedures, such as mediation and conciliation”. Now the Senate will analyze the subject before it…
The debate regarding the urgency of modernizing Brazilian labour laws has been going for quite a while, probably dating back to early 80s. Over the last four decades, hundreds of professions have disappeared, thousands have been created and our legislation has remained almost untouched. As some of you may recall, not long ago, I posted…
In 2011, a computer gained fame as a celebrity. Its name was Watson*, of IBM. This was right after taking part in a very popular Q&A show on American TV (Jeopardy), in which Watson, with its ability to understand our language using only information recorded in its memory, and working offline, managed to successfully overcome…
As I have proudly published in several articles last year, Brazil has come a long way until it finally managed get its first Mediation Law into force. Find below a brief historic to remember this path: • 2004 – Start of the Judiciary Reform • 2010 – Ordinance No. 125 creates the National Judiciary Policy…
