Sorry (as we Canadians tend to say a lot). I’m A few days late with this post as I’ve been vacationing in London U.K. with my wife and 14-year old daughter. (Wonderful time, thanks). Today is my first day back in the office after the two weeks away and I’m sure readers will know what…
This story is for you if: You handle wage and hour class action cases; You run into the situation where there are multiple similar actions filed against the same defendant by different plaintiffs. Settling class action cases is typically a distributive negotiation where there is a fixed pie that gets divided up. While there…
This is a 3-part post on why and how a little focused collaboration among practitioners and users can give ADR a tremendous boost. ADR Taboos In recent years, corporate users of ADR services have demanded greater transparency into the skills, experience and suitability of ADR providers and the adoption of stronger professional ethical standards and…
The Problem: You think that your client’s pain is so severe and different than the typical client that you value the case higher than the other side will pay. The Solution: Understand what category your adversary has put your case in and either accept it or try and create a new category of value. Insurers…
In an unthinkable movement, unseen in Brazil for at least 20 years, the most important cities in the country have witnessed massive street protests over price increases in public transportation in the last few days. Much like in several other social movements throughout the world, social networks were the tool used to spread the initial…
A human resources manager recently asked me for a general list of reasons why a mediation might not settle. While part of me wanted to question the idea of settlement as the goal of mediation (see Alan Gross’s excellent piece ‘Agreement Not the Gold Standard for Mediation – http://www.mediate.com/articles/GrossA3.cfm ) most of me thought this…
The Law No. 29/2013, which entered into force on 20 May 2013, lays down the general principles applicable to mediation in Portugal. There are many reasons to believe that mediation could develop faster than before on the Europe’s West Coast. Fans of fado (a distinctly Portuguese music genre, well known for its artistic refinement and…
The problem: Many cases involve multiple claims and have limited resources to divide up. For example, if several people are injured and an insurance policy has been tendered, the injured victims have to come up with a method by which a fair division of the policy proceeds can be determined. The solution: Use an old-fashioned…
Another new mediation venture in Scotland: last week saw the launch of University of Strathclyde Mediation Clinic (http://www.strath.ac.uk/humanities/lawschool/mediationclinic/ ). While by no means a new idea, it’s the first in this jurisdiction. The response took us by surprise. We were graced with the presence of the University’s Principal, a judge, lawyers, sponsors, advice agencies, academics…
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…
