Resolution Strategies

Looking back at the nearly 3,000 mediations I've conducted over the past 15 years, only a handful come to mind that may not have been of value to the parties. Even those mediations that didn't result in same-day resolution were almost always of genuine value — not merely in my judgment, but in the j [...]

For reasons that remain a mystery, one or both sides frequently wait until the day of mediation to share certain information and/or present their opening demand or offer to the other side -- often creating a problem at the very outset of the mediation that was otherwise completely avoidable. There a [...]

Disputes aren't always cut from the same cloth and the strategies for resolving them often need to be tailored to fit the situation at hand. Sometimes, that requires thinking "outside the box." Over the years, I've been involved — either as mediator or litigator — in dozens of mediations that requir [...]

Few things foster greater resentment, nor greater resistance to resolving conflict, than aggressively arguing one’s position and/or criticizing the other side’s position during direct settlement discussions or a joint session in a mediation. When one side elects to go on the offensive, the other sid [...]

As I was watching the NFL Wild Card, Divisional and Conference Championship games last month, it struck me that mediation and "the prevent defense" share the same DNA — the objective of both is to manage risk and prevent, to the greatest extent possible, a loss that might otherwise have been avoided [...]