Mediation News
January 2012
In This Issue
Upcoming Events
Quick Links
Call For Proposal
GSC and BU Take Top Honors
JAMS Foundation
Many Worlds of Mediation
Mediation Video Contest
Upcoming Events

January 9-10, 2012

Facilitating Negotiations, Cornell University Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution

New York City, NY  

 For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

January 11-12, 2012

CPR Annual Meeting Training for Basic Mediator Skills

CPR Institute, NYC

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

January 12-16, 2012

NVC Mediation's Immersion Program:

US East Coast

Essex, MA

 For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

Jan. 20 and 22, 2012

Child Custody and Visitation Mediation Training

White Plains, NY

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

Jan. 20-22, 27-29, 2012

Basic Mediation Training

IMCR

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

Jan. 20-22, Feb. 4-5, 2012

Basic Mediation Training

Ackerman Institute

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

January 23-26, 2012

30 HR. Basic Mediation Training

NYCID

For more information,

 CLICK HERE!

 

Jan. 23-24, Feb. 6-7, 2012

Basic Mediation Training with Professor Carol Liebman and Dina Jansenson

New York City Bar Assoc.

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

January 27, 2012

Problem Solving First Aid:

Learning the Art of Brief Helping Interactions on the Job. Community Mediation, Inc.

Hamden, CT

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

January 28, 2012

Training Program:

Stage 1 Humanitarian Outreach & International Disaster Relief Utilizing the Seven-Step Biopsychosocial, & Eco-Spiritual Model, Post Trauma Healing & Meaning Making

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

February 5, 2012

Elder/Adult Family Mediation Training

Newton, MA

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

Feb. 8 - April 18, 2012

Mediation Course at

New York University

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

Feb. 10-12, 2012

Divorce Mediation Training with

Robert Collins

New York Peace Institute

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

Feb. 13-14, 2012

Ethics in ADR

Cornell University Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution

New York, NY

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

Feb. 15-16, 2012

Advanced Issues in Mediation: The Science of Settlement

Cornell University Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution

New York, NY

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

Feb. 21 - May 1, 2012

Advanced Mediation Techniques

New York University

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

Feb. 22-24, 27-28, 2012

40 Hour Divorce Mediation Training

Ackerman Institute

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

February 22, 2012

Advanced Mediation Training

Ackerman Institute

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

Feb. 29 - March 4, 2012

40 Hour Basic Mediation Training

NY Peace Institute

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

March 12-14, 2012

Mediating and Arbitrating in the Federal and Public Secor

Cornell University Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution

New York, NY

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

March 15-16, 2012

Cross Cultural Issues in Mediation and Negotiation

Cornell University Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution

New York, NY

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

April 9-11, 2012

Neutral Investigation and Fact-Finding of Sexual Harassment Complaints

Cornell University Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution

New York, NY

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

April 18, 2012
International Academy of Mediators
American Bar Association Section on Dispute Resolution
Washington, DC

 

April 18-21, 2012
International Academy of Mediators
American Bar Association Section on Dispute Resolution
Washington, DC
For more information,
 

April 19-20, 2012

Interest Based Bargaining

Cornell University Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution

New York, NY

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

April 20-22, 27-29, 2012

Basic Mediation Training

IMCR

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

April 24-26, 2012

Elder/Adult Family Mediation Training

Newton, MA

For more information,

CLICK HERE!

 

May 3-7, 2012

NVC Mediation's Immersion Program:

US East Coast

Essex, MA

For more information,

CLICK HERE

 

May 16-18, 2012

Increasing Effectiveness in Arbitration

Cornell University Schelman Institute on Conflict Resolution

New York, NY

For more information,

CLICK HERE

 

July 20-22, 27-29, 2012

2012 Basic Mediation Training

IMCR

For more information,

CLICK HERE!


Sept. 12-15, 2012
Association for Conflict Resolution 12th Annual Conference
New Orleans, LA
For more information, CLICK HERE!

Sept. 19-23, 2012
2012 Basic Mediation Training
NY Peace Institute
For more information,

Sept. 27 - Oct. 1, 2012
NVC Mediation's Immersion Program:
East Coast
Essex, MA
For more information,

Sept. - Dec. 2012
Advanced Mediation Techniques at New York University
For more information,
Quick Links


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CALL FOR PROPOSAL 
 

The Association for Conflict Resolution is now accepting proposals for its 12th Annual Conference on the theme "Creating Connections: Conflict Resolution in Deeply Divided Times".

 

This Call for Proposals closes on Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 5:00 PM EST. Only complete submissions will be given consideration. Each proposal is reviewed by multiple reviewers including reviewers in the relevant practice/interest area. Reviewers may recommend that similar proposals combine into one session. Final selections and inclusions to ensure overall conference quality are determined by the ACR Conference Committee. Presenters will be notified by email on whether the session is accepted or declined no later than March 31, 2012.

 

For questions regarding this Call for Proposals email Leah Retting at [email protected] or call 703-234-4082.


For more information, CLICK HERE! 

 

For a direct link to the proposal submission, CLICK HERE!

 

GSC, Brenau take top honors at National Mediation Tournament
Scott and Heidi 
GAINESVILLE - Gainesville State College (GSC) and Brenau University (BU) both won national championships at the International Academy of Dispute Resolution's National Tournament, which was held at Drake University Law School in Des Moines, Iowa, recently.

GSC won the school national championship in the attorney-client school division.

The team of Gina Schwartz (26, social work major, Flowery Branch, Vice President of the GSC Debate Club), Will Rigdon (22, engineering major, Oakwood), and Madeleine Broxton (21, political science major, Cleveland) finished second seed in the final four among the mediation teams, and went on to finish first in the final round to claim the national championship.

GSC and BU shared first place in the preliminary rounds as GSC's Scott Fuller (33, Business and Marketing Major, Oakwood) and BU's Heidi Cranford (senior conflict resolution major, Dawsonville), teamed up to win individual honors as a top attorney-client team. Fuller was on a team with Penny Hollis (49, early childhood education major, Gainesville) from GSC as well as Cranford from BU.

GSC and BU won other major awards at the tournament.

In school awards, the team of Amy Broome (31, Oakwood), Mason Roszel (21, business administration major, Flowery Branch), and Fernando Gonzalez (18, English major, Flowery Branch, native of Los Angeles, CA) maintained GSC's top ten standing in the school advocate-client division by garnering a 10th place award for GSC.

In individual awards, BU's Christina Poole (history/political science major, Covington) won an all-American Award the third consecutive year she has received an All American designation at the national tournament.

Additionally, Gonzalez and Roszel placed fifth in the attorney-client individual awards, and in addition to Fuller and Cranford, were thus named All-Americans.
BU was also represented by Shantel Francis (a junior conflict resolution major, Newport News, Virginia) and Megan Blackwell (senior psychology major, Kennesaw).

JAMS Foundation Awards $10,000 Grant to San Francisco Mediation Program
Irvine, Calif. - The nonprofit JAMS Foundation announced that it approved a $10,000 grant for the San Francisco Superior Court Litigant Mediation Program. The Foundation will distribute the money in the form of an Opportunity Grant, which awards up to $10,000 for smaller scale and more localized projects.

The grant will fund the Program's free and comprehensive mediation and educational outreach services to self-represented litigants (SRL), who are primarily non-English speakers, immigrants, low-income, disabled and/or seniors. The Program develops and provides specialized mediation training to its volunteer mediators and monitors them to ensure a high-quality mediation experience to the diverse communities it serves. It also works with community-based partners to extend and improve dispute resolution services and collaborates with organizations statewide to expand mediation services.
 
"The budget crisis has significantly affected the San Francisco courts, which also includes the Litigant Mediation Program," said Jay Folberg, executive director of the JAMS Foundation. "The JAMS Foundation is proud to fund and support this valuable initiative, which is providing a crucial service to the San Francisco community."

"The Litigant Mediation Program is a wonderful program that's providing an excellent service to the people of San Francisco and JAMS is honored to provide any support we can," said Chris Poole, JAMS president and CEO.

The funding will assist the Program with mediation services through March 2012, help continue its plan to expand services for more SRLs and seek out long-term funding.

About the JAMS Foundation (www.jamsfoundation.org)
 
The nonprofit JAMS Foundation is the largest private provider of ADR-related grants in the world. The Foundation was established in 2002 by JAMS, The Resolution Experts, the nation's largest private provider of alternative dispute resolution services, and is funded by JAMS mediators, arbitrators and employee associates who contribute a percentage of their income. The JAMS Foundation has provided more than $4 million in grant funding since its inception. Founded in 1979, JAMS and its more than 280 full-time mediators and arbitrators are responsible for resolving thousands of the world's most important cases. JAMS is online at www.jamsadr.com.
By: Ann Begler

Ann Begler As I was scrolling through my email a few days ago I was struck by the number of notices about various teleconference opportunities scheduled in the field of mediation. Some notices came to me as a member of national conflict resolution organizations. Others arrived from private groups that provide trainings in the field. As I was reading I found myself thinking, " Wow, this world of mediation is so different now. It wasn't this way 30 years ago when I started as a mediator, or even 10 years ago."

 

I began to wonder how many people other than mediators truly know about the many situations that arise where mediation can be a useful process for resolving conflicts and disputes. In fact, I wondered if lawyers who practice mediation on a small scaled in a defined area realize mediation's potential. Since we've just completed International Conflict Resolution Month that occurs every October, I decided to chart, for this week's Anti-Antagonist, some of the most prominent areas where mediation is being used around the country, including our own Tri-State area ...

 

Divorce Mediation: Mediation in this arena typically focuses on helping people who are going through separation and divorce to resolve issues such as property distribution, spousal and child support, and child custody (or in the field what we often refer to as the development of parenting plans). Divorcing couples also mediate issues beyond the scope of matters that would be determined in their divorce action. They might include, for instance, as college expenses for the children, financial trustees for children's accounts and the management of extended family relationships.

 

Business Conflicts: Partnership disputes, professional firm dissolutions, internal struggles within family and other closely-held businesses, and alleged breaches of employment agreements, among others, are areas where mediators are being called to serve as neutrals to help manage conflicts and to help facilitate constructive transitions in ownership, ways to sustain relationships and compensation arrangements for high level employees. Mediation is used at early stages when internal conflicts are first noticed, at later stages when conflicts have intensified (before they have spurred litigation) and, even at the end of the spectrum when disputes have escalated to highly contested litigation.

 

Employment and Workplace: Mediation works extremely well in a wide variety of employment and workplace situations. Mediators help to effect real change in protracted conflicts between co-workers, ongoing conflicts between managers and direct reports, antagonism within teams or between work groups, and in delicate situations that involve conflicts between a Board and a CEO. In some workplace situations mediation is a tool of early intervention. In more extreme circumstances, mediators become involved when internal workplace strife has elevated to a point where a lawsuit has been filed and a court action is pending. Mediated resolutions have clearly worked to diminish the high cost conflict brings to the workplace.

 

Elder Care and End-Of-Life Disputes: When a family member begins to go through significant life changes, or when the end of life is imminent, conflicts regarding a family member's physical care, financial needs, changes in a living situation, and, in general, issues related to his or her degree of autonomy can all become the source of family conflict. When death is close it's not unusual, because of historical and philosophical differences, for families to struggle regarding whether to terminate life, or whether to permit certain treatments. Such conflicts arise, internally, for the family, as well as between the family and one or more members of the health care team.

 

Non-Profit Corporations: As with any business corporations, internal conflicts related to workplace issues in non-profits often find their way to a mediator, as do differences and tensions within teams, between work groups and with organizational leaders such as an Executive Director. An extremely critical area within the non-profit world that has been well served by the use of an outside mediator involves protracted conflicts among members of the Board of Directors of an organization.

 

Medical Malpractice and Health Care: Research now shows a direct correlation between the failure of medical personnel to be direct and transparent with patients and families and the filing of medical malpractice lawsuits. Hospital and health systems across the country have begun to use mediation in two different ways: (1) Some systems have developed internal mediation processes that provide an opportunity for health care providers, the patient and families to work out their differences about the quality of care before any other type of grievance or court action has been instigated. (2) In many systems, when a formal legal complaint has been filed the issues of professional liability and damages are becoming more frequently resolved using the help of an outside mediator. Studies show the use of mediation to resolve matters in litigation results what is perceived as a fair result and a dramatic financial savings for the institution using such programs.

 

Municipal Conflicts: Disputes within municipal government arise between units within a particular governmental entity, as well as between two or more different municipalities. Incidences such as conflicts between a Council and a Mayor or a Mayor and a Police Chief have found their way to an outside mediator. As a result of many changes in the economic climate municipalities have been driven to build shared services with adjoining municipal entities. Mediators assist municipalities to work out internal conflicts between departments and also to help them build sustainable agreements with each other for items such as shared police services, merged fire departments and the sharing and regulation of precious resources like water.

 

Complex Civil Litigation: Civil litigation includes a wide range of lawsuits. Some examples are cases involving automobile accident injuries, commercial disputes between a supplier and buyer, alleged acts of negligence by professionals like lawyers, dentists, architects, and matters such as boundary disputes between land owners. Most often mediation used to resolve civil claims takes place after numerous legal documents have been filed, after each side has investigated the facts and following preliminary processes before a judge. This is late stage mediation, and is an effective process that brings and end to litigation and finality to a resolution.

 

Estates and Trusts: Families that have significant differences about an estate plan, provisions of a trust agreement, or the behavior of someone who was acting as a Power of Attorney can bring years of severe family conflict and the expenditure of considerable dollars. Although mediation can be used to help families work out conflicts and disputes when families are still in early stages of planning their estates, most people don't think of mediation at those stages. It is most often after the death of a significant family member when questions arise, and people are propelled into anger, frustration and doubt. Mediators have been highly successful in helping families avoid litigation through the development of mutually acceptable family agreements that incorporate what a family decides to do to resolve the disputes.

 

The areas I've highlighted are merely examples of some of the types of conflicts where mediation can be helpful. Over time the Anti-Antagonist will focus more specifically on these and other areas in an effort to expand knowledge about the more technical aspects of the mediation process. For now, this checklist -- which is not exhaustive -- is a reminder that conflict does not have to continue beyond the point of repair. A mediator can provide help that will keep conflict managed and support people to reach lasting resolutions.

 

Thirty years ago many of us knew about the use of mediation in labor strikes. We began to hear about mediation as a process for divorcing couples. The use of mediation was still novel. There were few private mediators and no court programs. Only a limited range of issues found their way to mediators. Today, the world of mediation is a much larger world, and people in conflicts of all types are turning to mediators to help them constructively transform those conflicts.

Mediation Video Contest 
American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution 
   

The American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution invites you to participate in our second annual Mediation Video Contest on YouTube�.  We seek creative, thoughtful, original three-minute videos that demonstrate the process and benefits of mediation. This year, we are including the theme of "Civility and Civil Public Discourse" to the competition with the goal of the furthering the public understanding of mediation and to promote the use of civility and civil discourse as a way to resolve disputes.  The video need not address only legal disputes.

 

For more information on eligibility, contest rules, prizes, judging criteria and more, CLICK HERE!

In an effort to recognize the specialization in the ADR community, we are creating 3 separate newsletters broadly covering these areas:  Mediation - Arbitration - International ADR.  
 
A newsletter focused in one of those areas will be sent out bi-monthly.  In order for you to subscribe to as many types of newsletters that fit your particular practice/interests, please click on the Update Profile/Email Address link at the bottom of this email. From there you will be able to select which newsletters you wish to receive or if you would like to opt out all together.
 
Thank you for reading my newsletter, and as always, if you have any questions on any of the articles listed, do not hesitate to contact me.

 

Sincerely,

 


Thomas Valenti
Thomas P. Valenti, P.C.

300 N. LaSalle St., Suite 4925

Chicago, IL 60654-3406
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