When disputes arise, negotiators face the difficult question of whether to try to reach a settlement on their own or hand decision-making power over to a judge, a jury, or an arbitrator.
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Discover step-by-step techniques for avoiding common business negotiation pitfalls when you download a copy of the FREE special report, Business Negotiation Strategies: How to Negotiate Better Business Deals, from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
mediator
The following items are tagged mediator:
Harvard Mediation Intensive June 2026
Led by mediation experts Audrey Lee and Alain Lempereur, the Harvard Mediation Intensive delves into mediation principles and processes through interactive presentations and hands-on exercises. From employment and business disagreements to public and international conflicts, you will discover effective ways to enable parties to settle their differences across a variety of contexts.
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Dealmaking: Secrets of Successful Dealmaking in Business Negotiations
Discover how to boost your power at the bargaining table in this free special report, Dealmaking: Secrets of Successful Dealmaking in Business Negotiations, from Harvard Law School.
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10 Negotiation Training Skills Every Organization Needs
How can managers and their organizations increase the odds that negotiation training will lead to beneficial long-term results? Here are several pieces of advice, drawn from experts at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.
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Harvard Advanced Mediation Intensive
In-Person Program Course Dates: April 27–30, 2026
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This advanced course is designed for experienced mediators seeking to deepen their skills, refine their strategies, and confidently navigate complex, high-stakes disputes. Through a blend of theory, practice, and case-based learning, participants will learn how to mediate power imbalances, implement impasse breaking techniques, structure the mediation process to … Read Harvard Advanced Mediation Intensive
Mediation Secrets for Better Business Negotiations: Top Mediator Techniques
In this Special Report, the experts and editors from Harvard’s Program on Negotiation offer a sampling of advice from past issues of Negotiation to help you learn the techniques you need to resolve your disputes through mediation. You will learn to select the right dispute-resolution process, choose a mediator with appropriate expertise, learn the steps … Read More
Setting Standards in Negotiations
As the starting point from which all commercial transactions occur, from purchasing equipment to setting salaries, negotiatiosn in business is an essential skill no matter what field a negotiator finds herself. Using an objective standard can strengthen your proposal and eliminate emotional bias.
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What Is the Difference Between Leadership and Management?: Successful Leadership Strategies From Harvard’s Program on Negotiation
In this FREE special report, we offer advice to help you improve your leadership and negotiation skills.
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The Mediation Process and Dispute Resolution
As compared with other forms of dispute resolution, mediation can have an informal, improvisational feel. Mediation can include some or all of the following six steps.
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Mediation Training: What Can You Expect?
Organizations have long recognized the value of hiring professional mediators to help resolve disputes. More and more, managers have begun to also see value in securing mediation training for themselves and their employees. Although there are times when the services of an unbiased, professional mediator are needed, there may also be instances in which employees … Read Mediation Training: What Can You Expect?
Mediation Checklist: 5 Questions to Ask When Hiring Mediators
Are you hiring a mediator? When considering a potential mediator, create a mediation checklist and ask the following questions of those who have worked with him in the past.
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What is Alternative Dispute Resolution?
So, you’re stuck in a serious dispute, but you’re desperate to avoid the hassle and expense of a court case. You’ve heard about alternative dispute resolution but are not sure what it entails.
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Three Questions to Ask About the Dispute Resolution Process
Dispute resolution is often a multistep process that can start with negotiation, move on to mediation, and, if necessary, end in arbitration or litigation.
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How Mediation Can Help Resolve Pro Sports Disputes
Worldwide, mediation has become a common means of resolving conflict, ranging from divorce to workplace disputes to broken contracts. Yet mediation remains an underused tool for resolving disputes in U.S. professional sports leagues.
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A Business Negotiation Case Study: Ending the NHL Lockout
How can negotiators overcome impasse and achieve win-win negotiated agreements at the bargaining table? This example illustrates the power of expanding the focus of the negotiations by looking for tradeoffs.
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Teaching Mediation: Exercises to Help Students Acquire Mediation Skills
Often, disputing parties are unable achieve satisfactory or sustainable outcomes on their own through direct negotiation, and require the assistance of a mediator or facilitator. Mediators can help parties involved in a dispute through examining the issues at hand, uncovering the parties’ underlying interests, and identifying creative solutions. To act as mediator requires a great … Read More
What is Med-Arb?
When parties find themselves involved in a serious conflict, they often try to avoid the expense and hassle of litigation by turning to one of the two most common alternative dispute resolution processes: mediation or arbitration. Disputants who are concerned about these drawbacks might want to consider a hybrid mediation-arbitration approach called med-arb.
… Read What is Med-Arb?
Mediation and the Conflict Resolution Process
It’s often the case that when two people or organizations try to resolve a dispute by determining who is right, they get stuck. That’s why so many disputes end up in court. There is a better way to resolve your dispute: by hiring an expert mediator who focuses not on rights but on interests—the needs, … Read Mediation and the Conflict Resolution Process
How Fast-Food Workers Used Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) to Demand Higher Wages
Labor unions are the most obvious example of negotiating coalitions. If an individual employee made demands of its employer, the company could threaten to hire someone else.
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Conflict Management: Intervening in Workplace Conflict
Question: I’m aware of lots of unresolved personnel issues that seem to be festering in my department, such as complaints about someone who is not doing his share of the work, another person whose griping is causing a drop in morale, and two coworkers who can’t seem to get along. I’m comfortable negotiating with customers, … Read More
Undecided on Your Dispute Resolution Process? Combine Mediation and Arbitration, Known as Med-Arb
The choice: arbitration vs. mediation. You’re not sure which of two common dispute resolution processes, mediation or arbitration, to use to resolve your conflict. Mediation is appealing because it would allow you to reach a collaborative settlement, but you’re worried it could end in impasse. You know that arbitration would wrap up your dispute resolution … Read More
Dispute Resolution Example: The Chicago Symphony’s Contract Dispute
A dispute resolution example involving the musicians of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and management highlights the potential value of involving an influential mediator in negotiations.
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Top 10 Dispute Resolution Skills
Too often, dispute resolution can be an acrimonious and unproductive process. The following 10 negotiation and conflict resolution strategies can help you find creative ways to reach mutually satisfactory agreements.
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Mandated Mediation: What to Expect
Business contracts, as well as the courts, often compel parties to a dispute to engage in mandated mediation. What is mandated mediation, and what can you expect from the process?
… Read Mandated Mediation: What to Expect
Why is Negotiation Important: Mediation in Transactional Negotiations
We generally think of mediation as a dispute-resolution device. Federal mediators intervene when collective bargaining breaks down. Diplomats are sometimes called in to mediate conflicts between nations. So-called multi-door courthouses encourage litigants to mediate before incurring the costs – and risks – of going to trial.
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Types of Mediation: Choose the Type Best Suited to Your Conflict
When parties involved in a serious conflict want to avoid a court battle, there are types of mediation can be an effective alternative. In mediation, a trained mediator tries to help the parties find common ground using principles of collaborative, mutual-gains negotiation. We tend to think mediation processes are all alike, but in fact, mediators … Read More
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Training: Mediation Curriculum
In 2009, we collected many types of curriculum materials from teachers and trainers who attended the Mediation Pedagogy Conference. We received general materials about classes on Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) as well as highly specific and idiosyncratic units like Conflict Resolution through Literature: Romeo and Juliet and a negotiating training package for female managers … Read More
How Mediation Works When Both Parties Agree They Need Help Resolving the Dispute
Negotiations have reached an impasse, but both sides agree on one thing: you need help resolving the dispute. You engage a neutral mediator to do just that. Rather than acting as a judge who decides who “wins” or “loses,” a third-party mediator assists parties in reaching an agreement.
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10 Great Examples of Negotiation in Business
A number of noteworthy disputes among businesses, organizations, and individuals made headlines over the last few years and demonstrate the importance of negotiation in business.
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Dispute Resolution on Facebook: Using a Negotiation Approach to Resolve a Conflict
For several years, Facebook has been working with social scientists to bring traditional methods of dispute resolution to cyberspace. The site has begun to offer users tools to resolve disputes with one another over offensive or upsetting posts, including insults and photos.
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Which Dispute-Resolution Process Is Right for You?
When you’re facing a legal dispute, you’ll want to choose the right dispute-resolution process. To do so, it helps to consider three questions.
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Consensus-Building Techniques
Consensus-building techniques can help parties facing a group decision reach longer-lasting, more harmonious outcomes than resorting to an up-or-down vote. Several different approaches are available to parties engaged in consensus building.
… Read Consensus-Building Techniques
Online Mediation: A Work in Progress
Online mediation became commonplace during the pandemic, but remains understudied in comparison to in-person mediation. As this mode of practice evolves, two researchers examine its pros and cons.
… Read Online Mediation: A Work in Progress
5 Conflict Resolution Strategies
Whether a conflict erupts at work or at home, we frequently fall back on the tendency to try to correct the other person or group’s perceptions, lecturing them about why we’re right—and they’re wrong. Deep down, we know that this conflict management approach usually fails to resolve the conflict and often only makes it worse.
… Read 5 Conflict Resolution Strategies
Choose the Right Dispute Resolution Process
What is dispute resolution? There are three basic types of dispute resolution, each with its pros and cons. The first two, mediation and arbitration, are considered types of alternative dispute resolution because they are an alternative to litigation.
… Read Choose the Right Dispute Resolution Process
What is Conflict Resolution, and How Does It Work?
If you work with others, sooner or later you will almost inevitably face the need for conflict resolution. You may need to mediate a dispute between two members of your department. Or you may find yourself angered by something a colleague reportedly said about you in a meeting. Or you may need to engage in … Read More
Dispute Resolution: The Advantages of a Neutral Third-Party Mediator
In an article, “Beyond Blame: Choosing a Mediator,” Stephen B. Goldberg advised business negotiators involved in a dispute to seek out an interests-based mediator to assist both sides in reaching a mutually satisfactory dispute resolution.
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Using E-Mediation and Online Mediation Techniques for Conflict Resolution
Suppose you want to hire a mediator to help you resolve a conflict that you’re having with an individual or a company, but for various reasons, meeting face-to-face would be difficult. That’s where online mediation comes in.
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Ripeness Theory in Dispute Resolution: Seizing the Day
The longer a dispute drags on, the less likely a collaborative solution often appears to be. But that view may be pessimistic: At a certain point, the time will be ripe for agreement. A labor dispute between the Minnesota Orchestra’s musicians and management highlights negotiation mistakes that can drive us apart—and ripeness theory suggests how … Read More
Alternative Dispute Resolution: Values-Based Role Play Simulations for Improving Mediation Skills
Three role-play simulations focus on the mediation of values-based disputes.
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Famous Negotiators: Tony Blair’s 10 Principles to Guide Diplomats in International Conflict Resolution
In his memoir, the former world leader highlights lessons from the peace process in Northern Ireland. One of the world’s most famous negotiators, Tony Blair, offers 10 principles to guide diplomats in international conflict resolution.
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Use Integrative Negotiation Strategies to Create Value at the Bargaining Table
How can you uncover additional value, make useful trades, and put together a package that exceeds your party’s expectations? Here are four integrative negotiation strategies for value creation that all negotiators should add to their toolkit.
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What Makes a Good Mediator?
What makes a good mediator? And how is it that mediators—who themselves lack any power to impose a solution—nevertheless often lead bitter disputants to agreement?
… Read What Makes a Good Mediator?
In Contract Negotiations, Agree on How You’ll Disagree
During the course of a complex negotiation, the last thing we want to think about is the possibility that a serious disagreement or contract breach will arise during the implementation stage. Yet we also know that such conflicts are common.
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Negotiating Identity and Values-Based Disputes
How Do Parties in Conflict Negotiate Core Beliefs?
Identity and values-based disputes are particularly challenging to resolve, as identities are naturally inflexible and values are typically much less elastic than interest-based issues. In conventional interest-based negotiation, parties often do give up one thing in exchange for getting something they want more. This is often not possible … Read Negotiating Identity and Values-Based Disputes
AI Mediation: Using AI to Help Mediate Disputes
AI mediation is on the rise, with chatbots increasingly assisting human mediators in resolving disputes. Here’s what AI mediation is capable of—and where it falls short.
… Read AI Mediation: Using AI to Help Mediate Disputes
Download Your Next Mediation Video
Use Video Examples to Teach Your Students to Become Better Mediators
Parties engaged in disputes are often unable to reconcile their differences alone, or fail to reach outcomes that are adequate for everyone. Mediators can add a great deal of value by helping parties to efficiently and effectively examine the issues at hand, take the interests … Read Download Your Next Mediation Video
Managing Emotions in Negotiation: Teaching Students to Turn Emotions into an Opportunity for Mutual Gain
How do you move from an emotionally charged moment in a negotiation to a mutually beneficial agreement? In negotiations of all types, whether buying a house or negotiating a company acquisition, emotions naturally manifest. Left unaddressed, emotions can derail a negotiation and make agreement seem impossible.
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Negotiation Research on Mediation Techniques: Focus on Interests
There is a better way to resolve your dispute: by hiring an expert mediator with a focus on interests – the needs, desires, or concerns that underlie each side’s positions according to negotiation research on mediation techniques.
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Now Available: Full Videos from the AI Negotiation Summit
On March 8 and 9, 2025, the Program on Negotiation (PON) convened leading practitioners and scholars on artificial intelligence (AI) and negotiation to present their cutting-edge research and discuss innovations in the field. The summit was also the culmination of a student AI negotiation bot competition, held by MIT. Chaired by Jared Curhan and Jonathan Gratch, the AI … Read More
Employee Mediation Techniques – Resolve Disputes and Manage Conflict with These Mediation Skills
If you manage people, disputes will show up at your door. Here are some mediation techniques from the world of alternative dispute resolution to help you resolve conflicts with employees in the workplace.
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Can AI Mediation Help Bridge Political Divides?
A form of AI mediation outperformed human mediators in a recent large-scale study. Although AI mediation could have broad real-world applications, its limitations need to be considered.
… Read Can AI Mediation Help Bridge Political Divides?
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- Business Negotiations
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- Dealing with Difficult People
- Dealmaking
- The Art of Negotiation: Anger Management at the Bargaining Table
- How to Counter Offer Successfully With a Strong Rationale
- Should Women “Lean In” to Create More Value in Negotiations?
- Negotiating Skills: Learn How to Build Trust at the Negotiation Table
- MESO Negotiation: The Benefits of Making Multiple Equivalent Simultaneous Offers in Business Negotiations
- Dispute Resolution
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- Negotiation Skills
- Negotiation Training
- Salary Negotiations
- Teaching Negotiation
- Labor Relations: Negotiating Collective Bargaining Agreements
- New International Negotiation Simulations: Teaching International Negotiation with Current Global Dynamics
- Expand Your Curriculum with 17 Newly Translated Simulations
- Asynchronous Learning: Negotiation Exercises to Keep Students Engaged Outside the Classroom
- Teaching Mediation: Exercises to Help Students Acquire Mediation Skills
- Win-Win Negotiations