Brazil is on its way to making lawyers mandatory on mediation procedures. Last month the House of Representatives approved a bill (PL 5.511/2016) that reads, in a free translation, “it is mandatory the presence of Lawyers in consensual dispute resolution procedures, such as mediation and conciliation”. Now the Senate will analyze the subject before it…

(This post is being republished because of technical problems when it was first published). I want to use this month’s blog to riff off Greg Bond’s recent insightful blog, because he’s touched on core issues of language, making sense and personal reflection. That post arrived almost in the wake of an email quoting jazz pianist…

(This post is being republished because of technical problems when it was first published) The recently reported Australian case of Ku-ring-gai Council v Ichor Constructions Pty Ltd [2018] NSWSC 610 (8 May 2018) provides a useful lesson in how not to conduct the hybrid Arb-Med-Arb process, from which (I hope) we might learn how to…

Having looked at The Rise of Co Mediation in Mega Mediations last month and the challenges such cases pose for mediators, let’s get a little closer to the inner workings of these mediations, especially at the intake stage. So many moving parts – the people, the paper, the posturing –  like a long haul plane sitting…

When you study languages, or gain fluency in more than one, at some point you realise that each language has its own terms that are not translatable. It is about the way language thinks for us, and in different languages or cultures this varies. Take the English word “sophisticated.” I am bilingual in English and…

I am as much a mediator as I am a member of the global exhibition industry. Knowing both professions intimately, I strongly believe that mediation should be a fundamental tool used to address and solve conflicts within the exhibition industry. In the exhibition industry, healthy co-operation is key to future success and business relationships are…

“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” Pablo Picasso. Last month I travelled to Edinburgh for the International Academy of Mediators conference, chaired and hosted by John Sturrock. The theme of the conference was “Looking outward – mediation: a new enlightenment?” Not only was…

Here in Singapore, along with the rest of the world, we await the Trump-Kim Summit scheduled for Tuesday 12 June. What can we expect? While we may have learned to expect the unexpected from these two leaders, Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un, recent media reports have highlighted one apparently predictable feature of Trump’s negotiation approach….

This entry is an ongoing series focused on using Neuro-Linguistic Programming in our practice of amicable dispute resolution. For ease of reference and the convenience of readers, I will list in this and subsequent entries the series and links to it. 1. A Neuro-Linguist’s Toolbox – A Starting Point and Building Rapport 2. A Neuro-Linguist’s…

The International Association of Mediators conference in Edinburgh last month provided a great opportunity to reflect on the lessons learned from the application of a principled negotiation approach, as set out in ‘Getting to Yes’. The conference benefited from the experience of over a hundred leading mediators from around twenty countries, along with policy makers…