For more advice on leading an ADR process in your organization, consult these books.
Mediators
The following items are tagged Mediators.
Mediating Tragedy: Managing the Boston Victim’s Compensation Fund
In mid-May, about a month after the Boston Marathon bombings of April 15, lawyer and mediator Kenneth Feinberg stood in an auditorium at the Boston Public Library to address families who had been directly impacted by the tragedy. Feinberg was in charge of administering One Fund Boston, a fund created to distribute donations to the victims.
What to Do Before the Deal Breaks Down
Whenever one side fails to meet its contractual obligations, renegotiation is more likely to succeed if the parties have a strong relationship. Ideally, the aggrieved party will value long-term relations more than potential gains from a claim for breach of contract. For example, a bank will be more willing to renegotiate a loan with a delinquent debtor when the prospect of future business with the debtor is likely. Bondholders of the same debtor, on the other hand, will generally be more resistant to renegotiation, as they tend to lack opportunities for a profitable future business relationship.
Hiring a Mediator: A Checklist
When considering a potential mediator, ask the following questions of those who have worked with him in the past.
Dispute Resolution Using Online Mediation
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.
Perhaps you and the other party are located in different geographic areas. Maybe your dispute originated in an online transaction, and you’ve never even met. Or perhaps one of you feels threatened or intimidated by the other and is reluctant to meet in person.
The Mediator as Negotiation Advisor: Team versus Individual Interests
If you’ve ever been part of an organization team preparing to negotiate an agreement with another organization, you probably have faced this frustrating task: Aligning your individual interests , other team members’ interests, and those of your company as a whole.
A Lesson from Turkey: Raise Your Profile in International Negotiations
Negotiators seek to raise their stature and increase their influence in international negotiations and other realms by serving as mediators and peacekeepers when conflicts emerge. To do so, they need to cultivate a reputation for impartiality or, at the very least, a willingness to listen to both sides.
David A. Hoffman
David A. Hoffman is an attorney, mediator, arbitrator, and founding member of Boston Law Collaborative, LLC. David teaches the Mediation course at Harvard Law School, where he is the John H. Watson Jr. Lecturer on Law, and co-teaches the Mediation course at the Harvard Negotiation Institute of the Program on Negotiation. He has also been the lead trainer in several mediation trainings for the American Bar Association.
Gary J. Friedman
Gary J. Friedman has bee practicing law as a mediation with the MEdiation Law Offices in Mill Valley, California, since 1976, integrating meditative principles into the practice of law and the resolution of legal disputes. Through the non-profit organization which he co-founded, The Center for Understanding in Conflict (formerly the Center for Mediation in Law), he has been teaching mediation since 1980.
Using Mediators to Resolve Disputes
You’ve seen how mediators can help one organizational team prepare for a complex negotiation. But what about when litigation looms?









