You have a choice to make. In front of you stand two doors. If you go through the door on the right you will receive $20. If you choose the left door you will have a one in five chance of receiving $100. Which door do you choose? It is now well accepted that the…
One of the privileges and perils of working as a mediator in Scotland is that we get a close-up view of developments in England and Wales. In an ideal world this should allow us (pop. 5 million) to learn from them (pop. 55 million): to pick the best innovations and avoid the failures. As I…
As globalisation progresses and migration increases, the number of bi-national and bi-cultural relationships and marriages is increasing. This brings a new richness and diversity to our society, but can also bring new challenges and difficulties when those relationships break down. One of the difficulties that can arise is international parental child abduction, where one parent…
1. Failing to get the right people at the table. 2. Failing to explain the mediator’s role as agent of reality. 3. Permitting settlement negotiations to begin prematurely – prior to permitting the parties to vent or prior to risk analysis and reality testing. 4. Failing to orchestrate the negotiations by discouraging out of the…
Desire. I have some transcripts from real-life family mediations to analyse and reading the transcripts, it struck me that I was reading about desire. This sent me back to my 1985 language, literature and culture textbook, Modern Literary Theory, and to psychoanalytic and linguistic theories. Thinking also about Nadja Alexander’s post about the Carlo Scarpa…
This morning I was greeted with the news that Julian Barnes’ The Sense of An Ending had been named this year’s winner of the Man Booker Prize. A wonderful read, in part about how our memory deceives us, it struck me as an appropriate point of departure for this blog post. Like Barnses’ narrator, “I…
Last weekend I was entertained by the “progressive rock” group Caravan, a lesser known group of musicians, the peak of whose glory was 40 years ago, in 1971. These grey-haired men in their mid-60’s displayed enthusiasm, energy and engagement as they took us down memory lane, with deft playing and masterly reconstruction of some of…
At their third mediation meeting, the parties reached an agreement in a dispute between family members over family property. The parties also seemed to settle older personal issues that apparently had nothing to do with the case. With the feeling that both the relationship and the outcome issues were resolved, six parties and their lawyers…
The Situation: Your client has brought a spouse or a significant other to the mediation who is having a problematic influence on your client’s decision-making abilities. This is preventing you from getting your client prepared for a fair settlement. The Solution: Enroll the spouse in the settlement process early, as opposed to ignoring them. This…
This post is dedicated to the memory of Steve Jobs (1955-2011) [Author’s note: I had in mind another subject for this blog post. I was however moved to write this one. It seems fitting that I am writing it on my Mac Book Air.] 5 October 2011 was a sad day. It saw the passing…
