This is a blog I have shied away from writing. Several times. Even now, as I do so, I am wary of it. But here goes. I’ll come right out with it. Very few women feature on the lists of “top” commercial mediators. This year’s Who Who Legal World’s Top Ten features precisely….none. Seriously? Come…
whereby F=The Future, T=Trust, Q=Quality and I=Information The Future of mediation hangs on several factors. Probably the most important is Trust. If mediation is not widely trusted by users, it has a mediocre future. This is simply because mediation depends on the parties, who usually do not trust each other, fully trusting the mediator…
Once again, we find ourselves on the eve of the annual ICC Commercial Mediation Competition which is about to kick off in Paris, France next week. Last year I posted 10 tips for participants, one of the most important being that mediation remains an oral sport, and the most effective counsel and parties in real…
I was all set to write about climate change and, more particularly, to reflect on some excellent writing on that subject which addresses so-called climate change sceptics or deniers. It seems to me that there is much to be learned about the motivations and psychology which affect such people and which can easily be read…
“Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” Mary Oliver, American poet “Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought…It implies withdrawal from some things in order…
This has been a bad week. With the Charlie Hebdo incident in Paris, I found myself despairing about the state of the human condition. And I know that the issues are complicated. On the one hand, the right to free speech balanced off against the right to exercise free speech responsibly. On the other, whether,…
(This is the second of three parts of a keynote address to the YMCA Conference “From Reactions to Relations” in Burton on Trent on 20 November 2014) Last month I wrote in this blog about the fact that mediators “can’t help noticing” certain things as a result of the work that we do. We are…
A couple of years ago in January I wrote a post on likely developments in Ireland in the New Year which, if I recall correctly, had the expression “High Hopes” in the title. Those hopes related primarily to the publication of a new, comprehensive piece of legislation on mediation and the impact it might have…
Something is in the air at the moment. And it goes to the heart of what we mediators do. On the one hand, noted mediation thinkers such as Robert Bush and Joseph Folger write an empassioned challenge to the profession “Reclaiming Mediation’s Future: Getting Over the Intoxication of Expertise, Re-Focusing on Party Self-Determination”, arguing that…
On the last day of the year, like many of you, I find myself reflecting on the events of the past 12 months, the highs and lows, the tensions and the takeaways. Here is one of the takeaways. In January this year I spent a day hiking through some spectacular scenery in Hong Kong. We…
