Practical Challenges for Mediators

Community Mediation, Conventional wisdom, Court Procedure and Litigation, Developing the Field, Growth of the Field (Challenges, New Sectors, etc.), mediation models, Mediation Practice, mediation traditions, Mediation Users/Clients, Neutrality, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Scotland, The role of the mediator, Uncategorized, user perspectives

(University of Strathclyde)/ /1 Comment

(This post is being republished because of technical problems when it was first published.) One of the key debates among mediators centres on the word ‘evaluation’. I’ve written about this before – see Has the evaluative label outlived its usefulness? I’m sure many readers are familiar, even bored, with the claimed polarity between facilitative and…

ADR, Argument, Below the line, Brexit, caucus, Clients, Commercial Mediation, Communication, Conflict, Conventional wisdom, Creativity, cross-border mediation, Decision making, Dialogue, Fear, Impasse, Instinct, Intuition, Joint Sessions, Mediation Practice, mediation process, Middle East, Negotiation, peace negotiations, Perception, Practical Challenges for Mediators, shuttle mediation, Stories, Success in mediation, The role of the mediator, Trust, Violence

(Bill Marsh Mediator)/ /2 Comments

Bloomberg (not my usual reading fodder, I confess) carried an interesting piece a couple of months ago, entitled “Meet the Real Force Behind the Brexit Talks”. Yes, it was about Brexit (yawn) but it was about an unseen side of the negotiations. Opening with the line “In every negotiation the most important work is done…

Bias, Cognitive Bias, Commercial Mediation, Decision making, Developing the Field, Dispute Resolution, Future of mediation, Mediation and Society, Mediation Practice, mediation process, Mediators’ Conduct, Neuroscience, peace negotiations, Personal Development, Policy, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Promoting Mediation, Public Policy, Reflective Practice, Scotland, shuttle mediation, Skills, Social intelligence, Success in mediation, The role of the mediator, Tips, Transformation, Trust, Uncategorized, Understanding mediation

(Core Solutions Group)/ /Leave a comment

“I’ve been trying to tell you, but you didn’t listen. You’ve got to go down more deeply and take more time, you’re rushing it and it’s too superficial. You’re hardly disturbing the surface. You’ll make no progress that way. And you are using so much effort. Relax. When you get into difficulty, you are expending…

ADR, Developing the Field, General, Growth of the Field (Challenges, New Sectors, etc.), Lawyers, lawyers in mediation, Online Dispute Resolution (ODR), Practical Challenges for Mediators, Stages of mediation

/ /4 Comments

My guess is that most of my fellow authors on this blog, and probably a high proportion of readers, work in a mediation environment is which clients are represented by counsel. Indeed, if you track back over a number of entries in which matters of process are discussed, it seems typically assumed that counsel are…

Appointment of Mediators, Caucus, Commercial Mediation, Deal Mediation, Economics, Ethics, Future of mediation, Growth of the Field (Challenges, New Sectors, etc.), Improvisation, Joint Sessions, lawyers in mediation, Legal Practice, Mediation Practice, Philosophy, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Promoting Mediation, Public Policy, Quality, Reflective practise

(Weiler ADR Inc.)/ /9 Comments

Troubling trends observed as an Ontario commercial mediator compel me to once again take up my chiclet-keyed sabre. That the following are indeed trends in commercial mediation in Ontario is unsupported by any reliable data – because no one keeps track. No one records. It’s all anecdotal. Still, I’m now closing in on 30 years…

Below the line, Clients, Commercial Mediation, Communication, Community Mediation, Conflict, Conventional wisdom, Creativity, Dialogue, Dispute Resolution, Due Process, General, Instinct, Intuition, mediation as a career, Mediation Outcomes, Mediation Practice, mediation process, Mediation Users/Clients, Mediators’ Conduct, Perception, Playbook, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Reflective practise, Skills, Tips, Transformation, Understanding mediation

(Bill Marsh Mediator)/ /11 Comments

It’s not easy to blog once a month, even on a subject I love. Often I sit down to write with no real ideas or inspiration. Sometimes I end up that way too (as you may have noticed!). It becomes easy to dread the approach of my monthly publication date. Often the pressure lies in…

Communication, Conflict, Dialogue, General, Mediation Practice, Neutrality, Practical Challenges for Mediators, The role of the mediator

/ /Leave a comment

Many of my fellow bloggers on these pages, and perhaps many of the readers, will have found themselves in the position in which friends, colleagues, workmates or others call on your/our mediation experience at short notice, and in circumstances that are perhaps not ideal in terms of planning and preparation. One of the strategies I…

Decision making, Dispute Resolution, lawyers in mediation, Mediation Practice, mediation process, Mediators’ Conduct, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Scotland, Stories

(Core Solutions Group)/ /1 Comment

As the year comes to an end, I am expanding upon a story to which I referred in a previous blog, in the hope that it may provide a couple of useful reminders of what we do as mediators. I had eaten a chicken curry rather hastily at the hotel where I had been mediating…

Causes of Conflict, Communication, Conflict, Dispute Resolution, General, Perception, Practical Challenges for Mediators, Skills

(National University of Singapore, Faculty of Law)/ /2 Comments

I was reflecting the other day that in the 25 years that I have been conducting workshops in Negotiation, Mediation and other related areas, most conflict resolution workshops don’t seem to pay a lot of attention to personality preferences and how these can contribute towards conflict. I recently ran a workshop for the Law Society…

Bias, Causes of Conflict, Cognitive Bias, General, Impasse, Perception, Practical Challenges for Mediators

(National University of Singapore, Faculty of Law)/ /Leave a comment

I had the privilege of running a workshop with Marcus Lim (Executive Director, Singapore International Mediation Institute) at CDRC Vienna. For those of you who are unfamiliar with CDRC Vienna, it is a law school competition which focuses on components of negotiation, mediation advocacy and mediation. It is in its third year of running, and…