Many years ago I was an avid downhill skier. Nothing took my mind off the pressures of practice like a sun-filled cobalt blue morning sky and a virgin white blanket of new fallen snow to carve my way through. Moguls – those mini-mountains of snow that form on some runs – never failed to…
What constitutes effective mediation advocacy? Litigation lawyers in an ever-increasing number of jurisdictions around the world understand that mediation is becoming or has become the primary dispute resolution forum and thereforenaturally are interested in acquiring and enhancing the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively represent their clients in the mediation process. Earlier this year the…
Its interesting to me that when you Google “lying” and “mediation” you are redirected to “lying” (as in lying down) and “meditation”. Recently my attention was drawn back to the old issue of deception in mediation. It’s an issue that mediators, lawyers and parties engaged in mediation or negotiation do well to reflect on from…
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…
“They also serve, who only exchange offers.” A recent mediation experience serves to reinforce the value of patience in mediation – for the parties and for the mediator. The tort mediation, involving a single plaintiff and two insurers started at 10 am and concluded 8 hours and 15 minutes later. The following is the sequence of…
In what I hope readers of this blog will consider a deft segue, I want to shift from the successful judicial mediation that I highlighted last month to one that didn’t proceed quite so smoothly. Deals negotiated in mediation tend to hold or, at least, that’s been the conventional wisdom. The theory is that because…
I’ve been working in this field for more than 20 years and one thing that I’ve observed with genuine curiosity over that time is the sniping from various quarters that what I (and others with practices similar to mine) do each day falls short of “The Promise of Mediation”. As readers of this Blog will…
“Thank God for the last minute; otherwise nothing would ever happen.” This old saying rolls through my mind as I sit to type this on my iPad in the departures lounge at Toronto’s Billy Bishop Airport located on the island just opposite the heart of this great city. My blog post is due at midnight…
As I write these lines, I am working on a commercial mediation project in the Pacific nation of Samoa – yes the one that has just jumped across the international dateline. My blog post today is a reflection on an aspect of this work that is relevant, not just to me, but to any of…
Anyone who saw the 2010 Wimbledon match between Nicholas Mahut and John Isner would appreciate my feelings as I watched an almost endless play of wits during a recent energy deal in which I had been appointed as Transaction Counsel. Clearly, parties to the deals had their cards and kept playing it in a bid…
