Writers Guild of America and Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers return to the negotiation table

[video]

Thanks, I mean blame, Eric Galton

In Praise of Joint Sessions

Most of us will be aware of the Ninth Annual Section of Dispute Resolution Conference held in Washington, D.C late last month.

ADR in Bloom: Politics and Collaboration in the Nation's Capital by all accounts was a tremendous success.

My friends and colleagues Tracy Allen of Southfield, MI and Eric Galton of Austin, TX (who I mention alot on this blog) anchored a skills session that is very dear to my heart: In Praise of the Joint Session: Skills and Techniques to Enhance Communication and Resolution

They ask mediators - 'Is the joint session not working for you? Have you abandoned it? Do the parties? Do lawyers? Yet many believe that the Joint Session Rocks! It is really possible that an improved joint session will increase the chances of settlements and resolution!'

Here's their gem of a paper handed out at the gig only, but now exclusively available to you, my dear readers.

Tracy and Eric start off as they mean to go on...recording some attorney comments we've probably all heard around joint sessions;
> "I never do a joint session"
> "I never let my client talk in a joint session"
> "We don't need a joint session. We know all the issues"
> "If we do a joint session, the whole thing will blow up"

HELLO PEO-PLE!

Ever heard of CDR's Satisfaction Triangle?

Emotional, procedural, substantive needs ring a bell?! Hmm...better read this chapter from The Conflict Resolution Toolbox : Models and Maps for Analyzing, Diagnosing, and Resolving Conflict by Gary T. Furlong

Professor Kimberlee Kovach

I am delighted to announce that Prof. Kimberlee Kovach of Austin, Texas has agreed to post the odd piece on mediation ethics at this blog - hitherto a large gap in the content.

Kim is currently a Distinguished Lecturer in Dispute Resolution at South Texas College of Law and has, over the past 15 years, published much in the mediation area including Mediation: Principles and Practice now in its 3rd edition and required reading for ADR courses in most leading US law schools.

Kim has taught at the Law Schools of Pepperdine, Hamline (Rome and St. Paul), Idaho and Humboldt (Berlin).

Kim is one half of a dynamic dispute resolution duo, with my friend Eric Galton of the Lakeside Mediation Centre, Austin, Texas and who I met when Kim, Eric and the kids travelled to New Zealand a while back.

Eric is the author of one of the most wonderful reflective mediation books I know - Ripples on Peace Lake.

Welcome Kim, we all look forward to some much needed gravitas on this sometimes alarmingly loose blog.

The Long Walk Home

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It's a lonely job, this mediating.

Especially walking through Wellington at 1.05am this morning in a suit.

Everyone else is drunk or homeless.

"...so the next time your mediation ends, everyone leaves at 1.00am and that lonely feeling creeps under your skin.... if you listen very, very hard, we are cheering about that play you made in the extra innings that made resolution possible..."
Eric Galton

Is that all there is?

Its late here and I just got in.

I'm bushed. It took too long.

The streets were quiet as I walked home and so is my house.

As the room emptied tonight, that familiar loneliness of a jobbing mediator stole under the door on the back of a thin winter draught.

But it was an oddly gentle conversation today and a satisfying (for them? for me?) mediation.

Actually, they were AWOL for a lot of it, going back to other times and other relationships, trying to accommodate the past.

All of them had moved in all sorts of ways by the end.

As I slowly wiped down the whiteboard Eric Galton's Texas drawl popped into my head "...so the next time your mediation ends, everyone leaves at 1.00am and that lonely feeling creeps under your skin.... if you listen very, very hard, we are cheering about that play you made in the extra innings that made resolution possible..."

Ripples from Peace Lake

We are in deep summer down here in New Zealand with long days on the coast and sand in the bed at night.

And its around this time we get to meet some real interesting folks blown off course from the well trod migratory path to Europe, coming DownUnder to swim with dolphins, watch pods of giant sperm whales or drink our cheeky young wines.

On their way from doing all three, but primarily the latter I suspect, mediators Eric Galton and Kim Kovach of Austin, Texas stopped by for a chat on a hot afternoon before boarding their magic bus for home.

Both are fellow travelers and are the same, same but different to those mediators around the globe who love their work and go about it with a quite confidence.

Eric's recent book Ripples from Peace Lake is a gentle miscellany of beautiful short pieces for the jobbing mediator... hard working chapters like 'On Assumptions' and 'On Patience' compete with dreamy summer afternoon reads like 'On Faith and Hope', 'On Change and Reinvention' and 'On Words Mediators Hear'.

'On Loneliness' Eric comforts us thus;
"...So the next time your mediation ends, everyone leaves at 1.00 am and that lonely feeling creeps under your skin, remember this essay and know you are not alone.
Thousands of your colleagues understand what you are feeling. And, if you listen carefully and listen very, very hard, we are cheering about that play you made in the extra innings that made resolution possible..."

Read a review by Tracy Allen "...in an Applebee's in Sturgis, Michigan, the journey began. The final game of the Astros-Braves World Series Divisional Championship played in the background. With a seemingly bottomless marguerita, I plunged into what would become a mediator's oasis....to speak of things mediators intuitively understand but often do not vocalize; and to remind us that in this world of endless troubled times, we as peacemakers have an obligation and opportunity to make a difference" ...read more