Dispute Settlement Counsel

Posts Tagged ‘Dispute Resolution Resources’

The largest annual gathering of Collaborative lawyers and professionals just took place in San Francisco from October 27-30, as the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals (IACP) held its 12th annual Forum.  As always, this Forum was an amazing event, four days of insightful, profound and transformative thought in the legal profession.  The IACP‘s mission is “to transform the way conflict is resolved worldwide”.   When 630 of its 4,500 members gathered at this year’s Forum, it was clear that this community walks the walk of transformative dispute resolution work.

I’ve practiced law for over 20 years and can say that by and large, lawyers are a fairly conservative, tradition-based group, steeped in and guided by precedent and procedure.  What is inspiring and attractive about the Collaborative Law (CL) community – particularly those who attend an IACP Forum – is its clear exception to that general norm.  CL attracts some of the most creative, progressive and out of the box thinkers from around the world.  They are fully engaged in this mission of transforming not only the way we resolve disputes, but more importantly the way we think about and approach them.

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What if your entire town made an official commitment to practicing legal wellness, for one year?  Or for that matter, your entire company?  Or your mission-based organization?  Or your family?

A couple of years ago I read an article in AARP Magazine about how Albert Lea, a small town of 18,000 in Minnesota, launched the AARP/Blue Zones Vitality Project.  The town made a commitment for one year to making changes in the way their residents ate, exercised, worked and played.  The guiding principle for the Blue Zones Project is to commit to four traits:  healthier diet, active lifestyle, clear sense of purpose and strong social networks.  A year later, when they went back to Albert Lea to see how things went, they saw that people wanted to keep it going and did just that.  The residents had logged 42,000 miles of walking, up from 37,558 logged a year earlier.  One resident noted that in one year, he increased his life expectancy from 52 years to 78 years. He noted that the project improved both his habits and his happiness.  Five months into the project, participating residents had lost an average of 3 pounds each and had added three years each to their life spans.

Now, take that same concept – a commitment of an entire town to practicing health wellness – but apply it to legal wellness.  For one year, what if town officials agreed that if there were any kind of municipal disputes, neither side would sue or go to court. Instead, participants committed to a pilot project in which they would act differently when they found themselves in disputes.  They agreed to first work together toward resolving it utilizing only non-adversarial dispute resolution processes.  The residents agreed also to commit to take any dispute they had to a designated center in the town or at the worksite, where, working with people trained in non-adversarial and interest-based dispute resolution, the parties worked through their issues together, through a series of negotiation sessions, guided by those trained to facilitate this kind of problem solving.  They also hired an ombudsperson to work discreetly, neutrally and confidentially with people having conflicts or problems in the workplace, in community organizations or in their families to diffuse them.  They utilized several preventive steps, training and educating.  They put policies and procedures in place to prevent certain disputes from occurring.  They put into their contracts dispute resolution clauses by which the parties agreed to try non-adversarial dispute resolution processes first, processes in which they controlled the outcome. Read the rest of this entry »

(Third in a series on the workplace)

Last week I had the opportunity to hear a brief presentation by Julian Tynes, the newly appointed Chairman and Commissioner of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD), along with MCAD Commissioner Sunila Thomas-George and other members of the MCAD staff.   Chairman Tynes was part of a panel at the 13th Annual Employment Law Conference, sponsored each year by Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) in Boston on December 10.

Commissioner Tynes’ purpose, along with that of his panel, was to update employment lawyers on recent developments, changes, procedures and recent discrimination case decisions at the MCAD.  One initiative that resonated with me personally as a father and former custodial parent was the suggestion that the Massachusetts Maternity Leave Act be changed to become the Massachusetts Parental Leave Act, be gender neutral and give fathers the same right as mothers to take work leave to care for children.

But as a mediator and employment lawyer who represents both employers and employees, what struck me about the MCAD Chairman’s message were three things:  His level of enthusiasm, passion and commitment that was reflected in his message, his taking time to set an example and first thank many of the MCAD staff who was present at the conference, and his view of the work that the MCAD and discrimination lawyers do as working together toward achieving a shared goal – that of eliminating discrimination from the workplace.

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Gloucester Fisherman Memorial

Every once in a while, my blog post is more a slice of life, driven by observations, travels or the events of a certain day.  It’s a break from the usual topic of dispute resolution, although I often find a nexus while writing it.

This post is about Gloucester, MA, America’s oldest seaport.  While beach towns, seaports, or fishing towns like Gloucester or Portland, ME, Portsmouth, NH or Montauk, NY are appealing, that is not why I write this.

I write this because I Love Gloucester, because my goal is to live there, and hopefully be able to practice our brand of dispute resolution there.  This place has been my getaway since I first came as a teenager and spent the day on Good Harbor Beach (GHB) with my friends.  I recognized early on that this place, along with neighboring Rockport and the rest of often overlooked Cape Ann, is a special place.  It is unique, alive, vibrant and like me, walks to a different drum of its own.  Among its several great beaches, two of them – GHB and Wingaersheek – are arguably are among the five most beautiful beaches anywhere in the U.S.

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Most people involved in a dispute think the first step to resolving it is filing a complaint in court and commencing litigation.  Then, you basically turn the case over to your lawyers and wait to hear good news from them about the results.  Those unschooled in litigation think that very shortly after that, the case will settle, because “all cases settle”, and they will get a nice chunk of money without much time, cost or trauma.

Others think that within a time about as quick as you can pick up your remote, turn on one of many weekly series’ involving trials, and watch the show, your case will be tried, your lawyer will stand up and make some charismatic closing argument like the ones on TV, and your “slam dunk” case will be won.

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Business owners, managers and entrepreneurs have confirmed some core beliefs of the Zeytoonian Center for Dispute Resolution. They are telling us that the most important element in resolving disputes is preserving important business relationships! They are also telling us that the notion of “winning at all costs” is among the least important considerations in dispute resolution. That is encouraging news and helps to confirm our beliefs about what is critical in dispute resolution and that non-adversarial processes are more responsive and better suited to meet the needs of those involved in disputes. Read the rest of this entry »

Part VI. The Sovereignty of the Client

First, for those of you following this series of blog entries closely enough to notice that we skipped a topic – Confidentiality – good work in attentiveness. That’s a great skill for an ADR practitioner or a user to have.

Another is the insight to recognize the need to “call an audible” (a football reference), or step out of the pre-arranged order of things because the situation calls for it. To be adept at creating the type of “thinking outside the box” solutions that can be done in ADR processes is also a key dispute resolution skill. This blog exemplifies these traits.   Read the rest of this entry »