If you assume that a mediator's job is to guide parties toward an agreement, it makes sense to first confirm that the parties are capable of standing up for themselves.  My latest blog entry explains why, especially in the transformative model, a mediator has no business screening someone out due to lack of capacity.

It is common when we are in conflict that different parts of us emerge. Some are familiar to us and some parts we do not recognize. Some parts reflect what we…

Some of the news items in recent weeks made me think of something I had read about acceptance (“Getting Together – Building Relationships As We Negotiate” by Fisher and Brown, 1988). These days we talk much about “tolerance”, but there seems to be a fine difference. Acceptance comes first: First we need to recognize the other party, only then can there be a question of how we deal with them.

Why does this need to be pointed out? Well, when we are in a conflict…

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In our show “Come As You Are -– The Mediation Experience”I will be speaking with Louise Phipps Senft about the mediation experience. If…

(originally published on dialogicmediation.com)

Last night on television's
 Saturday Night Live, Montreal-based rock band
 Arcade Fire wore the Quebec student movement's emblematic red squares and, in doing so, focused attention on the
 …

Cinnie Noble- I am looking so forward to interacting with you during the month of June for…

Not all of us know when, whether or how to be proactive and raise a conflictual issue with a person with whom we have an inner conflict. It’s a tough call at…

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 by clicking on the player below.

In an earlier show
So You Need to Mediate...HELP...Now What?, we discussed what mediation is, the benefits and values to you as a party in a dispute, the…

Before you hit send: emails and conflict escalation

by Bryan…

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We all have conflict in our lives, some disputes are more explosive and destructive than others. Maybe it is a long-term conflict with your neighbor over the property line, or a parenting plan has gone awry between you and your ex-spouse, or your business partners don't like how the business is run or being…

(first published in dialogicmediation.com)

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="620"] Herzog, Paris Café, 1959, inkjet print. Collection of the artist, Courtesy of Equinox Gallery (Globe and Mail, online)[/caption]

The starting point for the transformative model of mediation is…

When we have had a dispute with another person, it is sometimes the case that the facts about what happened become distorted. This depends for instance, on how…

Today, you are in for a real treat. Jane Henderson, Q.C., our perennially popular blogger and member of our distance mediation team, is back with another of her signature frank, but light-hearted, posts. I hope you are settled into a comfortable chair because this is one you'll want to read to the end!

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I’m seeing a disconnect between what the best negotiation professors are advocating as well as what’s being taught to current law students about mediation versus what’s actually taking place in front of me in many civil litigation mediations.

Current teaching.   Law students…

Originally published at www.mediationbytes.wordpress.com


So, I am honored to have been invited to teach at Pepperdine University's Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution in May 2012, and in January 2013.  How did this happen?

I’ve been teaching mediation advocacy and negotiation for years, mostly to attorneys, some to law students and…

Originally published at www.mediationbytes.wordpress.com

<a href="http://mediationbytes.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/pepperdine.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-727" title="Pepperdine University" src="http://mediationbytes.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/pepperdine.jpg?w=150" alt="" width="150" height="94" /></a>

So, I am honored to have been invited to teach at Pepperdine University's Straus…

This morning on the way to work, I came across a situation and was left thinking of what responses were possible.

An obviously drunk man of about 30 carrying an open tall can of beer in his hand came up to a younger (maybe 16-18 year old) boy and started belligerently berating him on the subway in between stops. He threatened the boy that he would find and later kill him. That revenge is sweet. All sorts of angry banter. The boy sat quietly, looking down at his phone, earphones in,…