1 PerspectiveAugust 2, 2012

Effective Litigation Management: The TexasBarCLE Presentation

Tomorrow I’ll be joining my longtime friends Frank Vecella and Robert Manley to present “Effective Litigation Management: Doing a Good Job at ‘Herding Cats’” at the TexasBarCLE’s 11th Annual Advanced In-House Counsel Course.  This project has been fun, productive, and educational so far, and we’re looking forward to Friday.

Hyperlinks to the PowerPoint and the Paper

The slides we plan to present, and the paper that accompanies the presentation, are available in the following formats using the following hyperlinks:

• The Paper, in .pdf format, can be accessed using this link.
• The Presentation, in PowerPoint format, can be accessed using this link.

Take a look at the presentation — you’ll be glad you did.

Categories: ADR,Decision Trees,ECA,Mediation,Negotiation,Resolution Tree,Settlement,Tactics

2 PerspectivesAugust 17, 2011

Breaking Impasse in Mediation: The Book

Impasse in mediation is an important topic to mediators, lawyers and the clients they serve, and I’m no exception — links to my prior posts on breaking impasse in negotiation can be found here and here, and a .pdf of a longer paper I delivered more than a few years ago can be found here.  I’m happy to say that the New York State Bar Association has just published a helpful new resource that can help us all avoid impasse in settlement negotiations: Definitive Creative Impasse-Breaking Techniques in Mediation.

In the spirit of full disclosure, my chapter on “High-Low Agreements and More: Definitive Tools to Break Impasse in Mediation” is among those in the book, which contains 19 chapters filled with real tips and tactics you’ll be able to apply in your next mediation.  As you can see from the book’s Table of Contents and Contributor Biographies, our (persistent and helpful) editor Molly Kapper, J.D., Ph.D. pulled together some of the best mediation personalities and commentators in the business:

Editor: Molly Klapper, J.D., Ph.D.

Authors:

• Simeon H. Baum, Esq.
• Professor Vivian Berger
• John DeGroote, Esq.
• Julie Denny
• Hon. William A. Dreier
• Professor Dwight Golann More…

Categories: Mediation,Negotiation,Settlement,Strategy,Tactics

5 PerspectivesJune 7, 2010

Negotiating through Impasse: A Paper from the Archives

a .pdf copy of “Break that Impasse:  Practical Solutions to Eliminate Deadlock in Settlement Negotiations” is available here

Lately I have heard about impasse more often than normal — Marc Lanzkowsky posted 3 Settlement Techniques that Will Help Move a Case to Resolution on The Claims SPOT, which drove a great follow-on discussion about impasse among LinkedIn’s Commercial and Industry Arbitration and Mediation Group.  As the comments continued, I thought about how much we all try to avoid — or work through — impasse, and an old article of mine came to mind.  This is a quick post intended to reintroduce that article to the discussion.

Break that Impasse:  Practical Suggestions to Eliminate Deadlock

It seems like only yesterday, but in 2004 I co-presented  Break that Impasse: Practical Suggestions to Eliminate Deadlock in Settlement Negotiations to the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Annual Meeting in Chicago with an all-star group of copanelists, including Eric D. Green, Ross W. Stoddard, Melvin S. Merzon and Mark Tatelbaum.  The paper, available here, is more than a few years old and I wrote it before my mediation training (so all disclaimers apply), but “Break that Impasse” includes:

• 20+ pages of ideas about how to prevent and break impasse — written primarily from the client’s perspective;
• Over 100 footnotes to mediators, judges, lawyers, clients and others who contributed their ideas to the paper; and
• A sample mediator’s proposal form, supplied by copanelist Ross Stoddard.

Take a look at “Break that Impasse” the next time impasse approaches — I hope it helps.

Categories: ADR,Fundamentals,Mediation,Negotiation,Settlement,Tactics

6 PerspectivesApril 28, 2010

Avoiding the Limitations of Decision Trees: A Few Tips from Mediators Who Use Them

No tool is perfect, and decision trees are no exception.  A few of the comments on prior posts in this series have explored some of the problems mediators and advocates have with decision trees and what we can do about them.  Today we’ll explore both the problems some mediators see in decision tree analysis and how those mediators make the tool more effective for parties and their counsel.

Garbage In, Garbage Out

Garbage in, garbage out is a problem in all forms of data analysis.  In decision tree analysis every input — from numerical values to probabilities to the construct of the diagram itself — affects the output, or the expected monetary value of your case.  Los Angeles mediator Joseph C. Markowitz summed it up nicely in Quantifying Uncertainty:

One [kind of uncertainty that decision trees can never resolve] is the More…

Categories: Decision Trees,Mediation,Negotiation,Settlement,Tactics