This blog entry is copied from an e-mail I received from Maureen Beyers, which she sent on behalf of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution's Committee on Women in Dispute Resolution (WIDR):



The statistics for women in ADR are profoundly discouraging and show…

We are excited to announce that registration for this year's Northwest Dispute Resolution Conference is now open!

Check out the…

ADR Research Paper Family Law Mediation Requirements in Selected Jurisdictions

In their June 2016 meeting, WSBA Board of Governors voted to approve the ADR recommendations made in the report of the task force on the "Escalating Cost of Civil Litigation".  Interested in considering some of the task force recommendations for your practice?  I offer my thoughts …

What comes to mind as you read each of the following lines?

African American female,

          Single mother of two,…

Friends and colleagues:

As I write this, it is just after 3:00 am in Orlando. The candles from tonight’s vigil are still burning amid the roses in our garden where we set them down in the fading light of this sad day and watched the sky bleed red at sunset. Like all of us, my husband and I awoke this morning to the shock and horror of news both too familiar and wholly foreign: unprecedented savagery unleashed against our community, a hail of bullets cutting down 50 of us: our friends,…

UW Law Review Article     

DRAFTING AGREEMENTS AS AN ATTORNEY-MEDIATOR: REVISITING WASHINGTON STATE BAR ASSOCIATION ADVISORY OPINION 2223

Caitlin Park…

Whether you loved him or hated him, agreed with his elegant legal opinions or fervently disagreed with them, it is undeniable that Justice Antonin Scalia was one of the most influential jurists in American legal history. His death on Saturday has sent waves – of shock, dismay, and jubilation – through the country.

At a time when political partisanship is at an unprecedented height, what most intrigues me is the much-chronicled friendship between Antonin Scalia and Ruth…

Today as I walked from my office four blocks to the county courthouse, I thought about how my seemingly simple walk was a lot like getting divorced.  It also brought to mind the pieces of the collaborative team and process and how the collaborative experience can make the walk to the courthouse safer and saner.

First I took an elevator ride down 12 floors.  When you first realize or decide your marriage is over it can feel like the floor fell away and that you descended to the depths…

One of the panel presentations at last week’s ABA ADR Conference in Seattle led me to wonder whether attorneys perceive mediation negotiations, especially in joint sessions, as a type of "Prisoners' Dilemma".

You may recall the setup for this classic example of game theory. Two co-conspirators (A and B) are arrested and held in separate cells with no means of contacting the other. The prosecutors do not have sufficient evidence to…

Here at the Bellevue Mediation Program our work is first and foremost a matter of listening to stories.   We have an unspoken contract with our clients – you tell us your story, we’ll try to help you.   Our volunteers are paid in stories.  To be a good mediator, you need a hunger for stories, because that’s what sustains you, and also because your clients can tell if you’re not interested.…

In the Fall 2013 issue of Conflict Resolution Quarterly, authors Susan S. Raines, Sunil Kumar Pokhrel and Jean Poitras examine challenges faced by professional mediators.  (See “Mediation as a Profession: Challenges That Professional Mediators Face”.)  Not unexpectedly, the researchers…

At dinner parties, when people would ask what I do for a living, I would respond in a joking way, “I make people’s lives miserable.” They would quickly come back with, “Ah, you must be an attorney.”

As a practicing trial attorney for two-and-a-half decades, I never understood just how accurate my description was. I didn’t try to make lives miserable, it’s just the result of a process they taught us in law school known as litigation.

Then it happened: my wife and I were sued…

An ADR Section White Paper on including children in mediation by Abby Kostecka, J.D. Candidate 2014, Gonzaga University School of Law:

An Analysis of the Inclusion of Children in Divorce Mediation and The Use of Quality Assessment Methods to Make Benefits Outweigh Risks - Is the Juice…

Here's a link to a very short article summarizing research in Québec, Canada. While the study only appears to have researched the experiences of one professional mediator, the results are interesting. 

http://www.lacba.org/showpage.cfm?pageid=15351

Warm regards to all,
Mark Baumann

Colleagues,



Please see below some information regarding the AAA Higginbotham Fellows Program.  Please pass this along if you know of anyone who might be interested in applying for the program.  I have contacts with many past Fellows who can provide interested candidates with some first-hand feedback on the program and how it's helped them develop their ADR skills and mediation/arbitration practice.



Thank you in advance for your…

Fellow ADR section members,



I am writing to give you an update on the Low Bono section formation project. ADR executive committee members Alan Alhadeff, Paul McVicker and myself began an ADR focus group on reduced fee conflict resolution concepts two years ago. We were inspired by a Seattle University CLE Presentation on the low bono concept by attorney Jenny Anderson. We quickly found a group of lawyers and mediators interested in the topic and we have been holding meetings and…

State ADR Summaries 202013

Nearly 400 people participated in the Northwest Dispute Resolution Conference this year. Presenters and participants from all over the Northwest (Washington, Oregon & Idaho), and from Arizona, California, Massachusetts, Montana, Texas, Canada & England, attended a variety of subject offerings, choosing among a total of 45 different sessions.  Participants commented the conference was “well-organized” with…