The Program on Negotiation at Harvard (PON) sends to subscribers a daily blogpost of interesting negotiation thoughts and analyses. It regularly visits the negotiation styles of world leaders with the idea that ‘by studying the negotiation styles of famous leaders, we can identify what to emulate and what to abandon’. Unsurprisingly it has shone a…

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…

John Sturrock and I recently had the pleasure of contributing a session on game theory and mediation to a workshop on global conflict and dispute resolution hosted by the Delhi Metropolitan Education College. Preparing for the event led me to reflect further on game theory and its relationship to mediation. In summary, game theory analyses…

This series of blog posts explores investment mediation from a variety of angles. In part one, we explore how to determine whether—and when—mediation is an appropriate option for resolving an investment dispute. Part two elaborates on what mediation is—and how it works—in the context of investment disputes. Part three outlines the primary differences between mediation…

After completing the mediation process, it is always helpful to receive feedback from participants. The quality of the mediation services we provide is directly related to our ability to draw lessons from feedback from participants and incorporate them into our practice. In this way, the chances of having good results, satisfied participants and future recommendations…

As we approach the end of Rosh Hashanah celebration, I decided to write about a book I love and gives name to this post: “The Jewish Secret of Problem Solving” by Rabbi Nilton Bonder. In the meantime, to my surprise I was lucky to learn that Constança Madureira , one of my partners at Mediar360,…

“Humanity has outsmarted itself. With its ingenuity, this tribal ape has created a world its tribalism can’t manage. We know this…But the knowledge is not enough.” So began Martin Wolf in a recent article in the Financial Times following a meeting of the finance ministers of the G20 – one of the institutions created to improve…

Every now and again something happens to cause me to pause and think – or re-think. Recently, I had that experience at a small ruined castle in the heart of Scotland, near a lovely country town called Edzell. Edzell Castle, visited by, among others, Mary Queen of Scots and her son, King James VI of…

Shows forms of dispute resolution and the thick line between mediation and arbitration

Law students are probably familiar with a diagram like the one above. It arranges different ways of resolving disputes according to how much say parties have in the outcome. Much as Felstiner and colleagues (1) famously described disputes being transformed into court cases through ‘naming, blaming and claiming,’ this graphic illustrates a parallel transformation in…

On July 12, 2021 the UK Civil Justice Council published its Report on Compulsory ADR . It considered first whether parties to a civil dispute in England and Wales may be compelled to participate in an ADR process. As to this question, it will be recalled that, in the Court of Appeal decision in Halsey…