Practical Challenges for Mediators

Confidentiality, Court Procedure and Litigation, Enforcement, Legal Issues, Legislation, Mediation Practice, Mediation Skills, Mediator liability, Mediators’ Conduct, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Regulation

(Strategic Resolution)/ /Leave a comment

The recent post by Ting-Kwok IU examined the Hong Kong Ordinance designed to protect children from abuse and to protect some professionals (excluding mediators) for reporting such abuse. This has put me in mind of section 316  of the New South Wales Crimes Act, which makes it a crime for an adult who fails, without…

Developing the Field, Mediation Practice, Mindset, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Reflective Practice

(University of New South Wales)/ /2 Comments

Insomnia drove me to a late-night television binge recently and I watched a rerun of  Pretty Woman, the 1990 movie starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. For those of you yet to see this movie, its great strength is that it offers lines that are useful for almost every moment of your life. ‘You must…

Creativity, Future of mediation, Mediation and Society, Mediation as a business, mediation as a career, Mediation Practice, Mediation wisdom, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Promoting Mediation

(University of New South Wales)/ /6 Comments

In the famous story of Noah’s Ark, Noah questions God about how he will find the animals he has been instructed to put in the ark. God replies, ‘If you build it, they will come’. The consistent repetition of this quotation throughout history (think of Kevin Costner’s movie Field of Dreams ) has created something…

Bias, caucus, Caucus, Cognitive Bias, Commercial Mediation, Communication, Confidentiality, conlfict coaching, Decision making, Developing the Field, Dispute Resolution, Flexibility, Intuition, lawyers in mediation, mediation models, Mediation Outcomes, Mediation Practice, mediation process, Mediation Skills, Mediation Training, Negotiation, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Reflective Practice, Scotland, Stages of mediation, The role of the mediator

(Core Solutions Group)/ /3 Comments

It’s been a long time since I wrote a blog just about mediation practice. Other things always seem more important! However, as I was mediating this week, a thought occurred to me about a rather imperceptible but very real change in my practice as a mediator, which I develop here, albeit in a simplified way….

Argument, Below the line, Clients, Commercial Mediation, Decision making, Dialogue, Experience, Framing, General, Joint Sessions, lawyers in mediation, mediation process, Mediators’ Conduct, Mistakes, Perception, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Tips, Uncategorized

(Bill Marsh Mediator)/ /8 Comments

Offers in mediation are too often approached with all the coyness of gauche teenagers at a school dance (acknowledging that this metaphor may reveal too much about my own youth!). It need not be like this. Here are some thoughts to ease the pain. Going first is not weakness. All mediations require offers to be…

Clients, Commercial Mediation, Decision making, Experience, Framing, Impasse, Mediation Practice, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Skills, Tactics, Tips, Uncategorized, Values and attributes of a mediator

(University of Strathclyde)/ /Leave a comment
Negotiators in a mediation

It’s been a while since I wrote about practical tips for mediators. Yet when I ask people what they want from training or teaching the commonest answer is… practical tips. I offer some below on working with parties who take cold feet just as resolution is approaching. I was recently asked to speak with lawyers…

Communication, Flexibility, Mediation with Teams, Online Mediation, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Skills, Workplace Mediation

(Bond & Bond Mediation / University of Wildau )/ /Leave a comment

For a while now some of my mediations and facilitations have been taking place again in physical spaces, while others remain virtual, as does most of my teaching and training. The effects of Corona are still very much determining how people come together to work. Having got used to the virtual world, I am now…

Conventional wisdom, Decision making, Evaluative Mediation, Improvisation, Intuition, mediation models, Mediation Practice, mediation process, Mindset, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Reflective Practice, Tactics, The role of the mediator

(University of Missouri Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution)/ /Leave a comment

I was puzzled to get an email from a mediator thanking me for my recent post, which advocated using a unified conceptual framework of unbundled mediation interventions. The puzzling part was that she wrote that it helped to “validate my theory that ‘bundling’ of mediation models can be appropriate and effective in the right case…

Court Procedure and Litigation, Developing the Field, Future of mediation, Legal Issues, Mandatory mediation, Mediation Outcomes, Mediation Practice, Mediation Schemes (In Courts, etc.), Mediation Users/Clients, Policy, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Public Policy, Uncategorized, Understanding mediation

(University of Strathclyde)/ /13 Comments
Graffiti commenting on truth and its usefulness today

I started mediating in my early 30s, surely old enough to know the difference between truth and fiction. Yet after a couple of years I began to say, first to myself then to my friends, that the concept of truth was ‘no longer useful’ in my work. What did I mean and how did I…