NADRAC releases milestone issues paper

Australia's National Alternative Dispute Resolution Advisory Council today released its long awaited 73 page Alternative Dispute Resolution in the Civil Justice System Issues Paper.

This paper is the first step in shaping how the courts and mediation will interact in Australasia for years to come.

It identifies strategies for incentives for the use of ADR, rather than the courts, both before and after commencement of civil proceedings.

The issues paper examines options such as:

1. increasing public awareness of ADR;
2. changes to civil procedure, costs and fees to provide greater incentives to use ADR;
3. mandating ADR prior to litigation;
4. improving assessment and referral services; and
5. using ADR techniques to improve court and tribunal hearings.

Submissions are due by 15 May and NADRAC will report to the Australian Attorney‑General by 30 September 2009.

All Australian and New Zealand mediators should read the original June 2008 reference to NADRAC here and the full text of today's issues paper here or a summary here

Timing is everything

Having just completed a factually rich mediation where we all needed to get our heads around a chronology of events that stretched over some days and where the minute by minute order of things was important to understanding the value of the case, it seemed to me we needed to do more than a text document with events listed by date.

Plus we needed to constantly refer to it and add to it as the story developed - so it effectively took the whiteboard out of play for the two days we sat in front of it.

What we really needed was a laptop, a data projector and timeline.

And what would be really cool, in a big mediation, would be to put the key documents online (easy to do) and link to them from within the timeline itself. "So on this date, this fax was sent but didn't get actioned until that date and meanwhile all these things intervened and you can see the photos here..."

Can mediation evolve into a global profession?

An important article hot off the press from Michael McIlwrath, Senior Counsel-Litigation, GE Oil & Gas, Florence, Italy and Chairman of the Board of the International Mediation Institute.

In many legal environments, mediation has found itself in a bit of a rut, experiencing only very marginal growth. Where mediators are plentiful, they tend to be in chronic over-supply. In the view of many consumers of dispute services, this is not a problem of mediation but of the way it is presented within these particular markets.

Take the UK for example. Having developed initial techniques and training from the US, there are now thousands of trained mediators. However, it is claimed that only about 20 people practice as full time mediators, with perhaps 50 conducting 80% of the country’s mediations. Thousands of others struggle to gain experience and practical skills...

At one and the same time, mediation is being presented with an opportunity to leave its status quo as a local niche activity and become a truly global profession. But the question is – are the mediators and service providers in this field sufficiently responsive to the current environment to make it happen?

To put it bluntly, mediation needs to emerge globally as a profession that is widely understood and accepted, and where competent, trained mediators are instinctively regarded as professionals regardless of their background. Where parties see mediation as an opportunity to come to a conclusion and are much more inclined to accept, rather than reject, a proposal to engage a mediator. Where there are enough competent mediators from all cultures and technical fields that the most suitable can easily be identified... [read more]

Sort of related; Now is the time to be talking to in-house counsel

Now is the time to be talking to in-house counsel

There have been many guessing what this economy might do to/for mediation, including this blog.

As the year unfolds, I think it is becoming clear. Commercial mediation is up.

If you have time, go visit members of your local in-house counsel community. That's where the action is in this economy.

As one counsel said "We decided that we wanted to regain control of our money, of our documents, of our reputation and of our time"

New Article from John Lande

Just up: Lande's 50 page The Movement Toward Early Case Handling in Courts and Private Dispute Resolution

Contents;

Early Case Handling in Courts
>Early Case Management
>Differentiated Case Management Systems
>Early Neutral Evaluation
>Early Mediation
Early Case Handling in Private Dispute Resolution
>ADR Pledges and Contract Clauses
>Early Case Assessment and ADR Screening Protocols
>Settlement Counsel
>Collaborative Practice
>Cooperative Practice

Gender dependent skill tip...

Having got a break-through in the men's urinal today, always follow the decision maker into the loo with a killer question; you'll get a killer answer.

I'm 51, I don't understand Facebook and how it can be used for my business

... but this video may help: How to Use Facebook for Business

And if you are a FB member, here's blahblah's FB business page.

Now what?

David Shapiro's methodology for successful mediations

Plenty to agree and disagree with in UK/US big name mediator David Shapiro's swan song here at The Mediator Magazine.

Required reading for those mediating litigated cases, Shapiro covers;

1. Insisting on full authority

2. Mediator Preparation

3. Pre Mediation Conferences

4. Pre Mediation Issue Identification

5. Joint Session Reality Testing

6. Positional Bargaining and How to Stop it

7. A Deal All Sides Can Live With

8. Multi-Party Litigation

9. Challenge Mediations

10 Going for the “Bottom Line”

11. Opening Statements – Are They Necessary?

12. Stopping the Mediation

[read more]

Did you hear the one about the Irish mediator?

His commercial mediation business is set to double this year according to a survey of 3,500 law, accountancy and other professional firms.

New ABA Committee on Psychology of Conflict Resolution

Although it would seem more at home in the Dispute Resolution Section of the ABA, the Tort, Trial and Insurance Practice Section has formed a new subcommittee devoted to the psychology of conflict resolution.

I can't find much on it but reports say it will focus on an interdisciplinary discussion of the human aspects of the resolution of civil litigation.

Topics may include the work of the social psychologists and relate to psychoanalysis, mindfulness, neuroscience, spirituality and other disciplines.

Contact Elizabeth Bader at elizabeth@elizabethbader.com for more information.

Thanks to Laura Coleman over at the CSDR-LL.M. E-Newsletter for the heads up

Stress management for mediators

Here for a podcast of Dr Pat Marshall describing what causes mediator stress, how mediators cope, and what attributes stand a mediator in good stead when the going gets tough (the sound is a bit iffy).

Related: Fatigue, Timed Out and Mediator Burn Out

Thanks to LEADR's "Update"