International Institute For Conflict Prevention & Resolution

In this week's International Dispute Negotiation podcast, the American Arbitration Association's general counsel, Eric Tuchmann, returns for his second visit, analyzing the Congressional push to ban mandatory consumer, employment and franchise arbitration. Initiatives to change arbitration practice were reintroduced last week. IDN host Mike McIlwrath, of GE Oil & Gas in Florence, Italy, sat down with Eric before the bills were reintroduced, and brings listeners up to date. Eric presciently predicts that certain language in the Arbitration Fairness Act won't survive - and indeed, one provision he found troubling in the earlier version of the bill was stricken in the new version that debuted last week. Find out what that change was, and what else may be altered before the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2009 comes up for votes.

This week, International Dispute Negotiation host Michael McIlwrath presents Part II of his interview with Christian P. Alberti, a New York-based solutions manager at the International Centre for Dispute Resolution, the American Arbitration Association's international division. In Part I last week, Alberti explained how the AAA sends cases to the ICDR. He described how matters are initiated and processed, as well as ICDR arbitrator selection. This week, Mike draws a contrast between the ICDR's methods and those of the Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce, which were examined in IDN Episodes 34 and 35 last July. Mike and his guest in this week's conclusion analyze the role played by case managers during the arbitration, and after the award is issued.

Did you ever wonder what your ADR administrator is doing behind the scenes with your arbitration case? Have you ever wondered how your name really got in front the parties as a potential member of an arbitration panel? You came to the right place. In his new, just-posted CPR podcast, International Dispute Negotiation host Michael McIlwrath sits down to dissect the case manager's role with Christian P. Alberti, a New York-based solutions manager at the International Center for Dispute Resolution, the American Arbitration Association's international division, goes into deep detail about the nonprofit company's case management processes.

More on representing clients in mediation from a top partner at this year's winner of the 2008 CPR Law Firm Award for Excellence in ADR. This week, host Mike McIlwrath presents Part 2 of his conversation with Alex Oddy, a partner who focuses on ADR at the law firm of Herbert Smith in London.Last week, Oddy presented the first four of his eight tips for effective mediation advocacy. This week, Oddy concludes with four more pointers on how parties can optimize their interaction with each other, and the mediator, once the process is underway--and even after it is concluded.

Effective client representation in mediation is more than being a good spoken advocate, explains Alexander Oddy, partner in London-based Herbert Smith, which last night won the CPR Law Firm Award for Excellence in ADR. Oddy explains that you also need to be a good written advocate, a good procedural advocate, and even a good psychological advocate in the mediation room in order to best support your client. And you need to be a good advocacy coach, too, so you can help your client take charge. In the first of two parts, Alex provides four of eight mediation advocacy tips to International Dispute Negotiation host Mike McIlwrath. The second half of the tips will be available in Part II, next Friday, Jan. 23.

Mediator Jenny Beer, who in September told IDN podcast listeners in her first visit that disputes indeed are valuable, returns to discuss international mediation. Flexibility is needed for cross-cultural mediation, she explains. Beer, who co-authored the cross-discipline guide, "The Mediator's Handbook," in 1982, tells host Mike McIlwrath that negotiators "need a mindset - not a list."

Our need to develop fairness and justice runs deep. How deep? About 40,000 human developmental years deep. In this week's podcast, Ian Tattersall, curator in the Department of Anthropology at New York's American Museum of Natural History, and an expert in interpreting human paleontology to the public, discusses how Cro-Magnon creativity and culture produced the beginnings of modern dispute resolution.

Arbitrators are sued for anything and everything, according to first-time International Dispute Negotiation guest Eric P. Tuchmann, the American Arbitration Association's general counsel in New York. Join Tuchmann and IDN host Mike McIlwrath for a discussion on liability claims against arbitration tribunals and providers. The analysis begins with a New Jersey parking lot brawl between an arbitration attorney-advocate, and an opposing party--a case that had the AAA defending its actions in a state appellate court.

Ben's Back! One of the nation’s top law firm ADR practitioners, Bennett G. Picker, of Philadelphia's Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young, returns to talk about what it takes to be a great mediator. The discussion is relevant to managing international disputes, explains host Mike McIlwrath, because it is the same information parties need for choosing a great mediator in the course of their dispute management. Find out the three things you need to know about what makes a great mediator in this week's IDN.

Mercedes Tarrazon, a veteran arbitrator and mediator in Barcelona, provides a platform for making parties and their attorneys more comfortable with mediation, arbitration, and other hybrid processes that keep people and companies out of litigation. Host Mike McIlwrath interviews Tarrazon about her effective technique for helping parties obtain satisfactory outcomes from their arbitrations--even well before the award stage. Tarrazon explains a practice that she has adapted in a variety of commercial conflict resolution settings around the world.

More ADR evolution this week, from a law firm perspective. Partner Alexander J. Oddy, of the London-based law firm Herbert Smith, talks with Mike about Inside Track, a comprehensive commercial conflict resolution report that was at the heart of the "honorable mention" the firm received in last year's CPR Law Firm Award for Excellence in ADR. The study found four categories of ADR "participants:" nonusers, negotiators, "ad hocs" and "embedded." Alexander and Mike discuss where business and their representatives go right, and go wrong, with their approaches to mediation and other processes.

This week, common ADR ground is struck between competitors. Host Michael McIlwrath sits down with a counterpart at Siemens in Germany, Senior Counsel Volker Mahnken. While the two won't agree on whose products and services are better, they unite over their dissatisfaction with current arbitration practices. And they happily agree on their in-house customer's satisfaction with mediation. Mahnken discusses a recent article he coauthored calling for an overhaul of international construction arbitration processes.

Document production isn't just a matter of complying with certain procedural rules. As Frederick T. Davis, a Paris-based partner of Debevoise & Plimpton, makes clear in this week's episode, legal and cultural differences across jurisdictions can raise a number of complexities that can only be dealt with through open and honest negotiations that are best done at the outset of a case or government investigation.

This week, Mike goes on a short Euro mediation tour. Find out how three top practitioners from three different countries-Belgium, Romania, and Spain --see their current commercial and court mediation scenes. Mike speaks with Helena De Backer, name partner in Brussels' De Backer & Bastin, and founder and current president of the Brussels Business Mediation Center; Constantin-Adi Gavrila is director of the Craiova Mediation Center, and president of the Mediation Centers Union in Romania; and Mercedes Tarrazon is an independent mediator and arbitrator in Barcelona.

Bringing missing advocacy skills into practice was an important part of the late Thomas Walde's view of teaching alternative dispute resolution. IDN host Mike McIlwrath sat down with the University of Dundee (Dundee, Scotland) professor and seminal theorist about his works and his views on presenting an arbitration case shortly before Walde died in an accident on Oct. 11. Mike assesses the legacy via the professor's own words, and sums up with his own reflection of Walde's work.

Is it true that 86% of corporate users are satisfied with arbitration? Really? Or do they mean that they "prefer arbitration," rather than they are satisfied? Host Michael McIlwrath casts a skeptical eye on arbitration use surveys released by PriceWaterhouseCoopers over the past two years. Prof. Loukas Mistelis, of the Queen Mary School of Law, University of London's School of International Arbitration, discusses the results on attitudes toward arbitration success and enforceability issues, and defends the studies.

It's time for Future History: sociologist Robert L. Carneiro, of the American Museum of Natural History and Columbia University, both in New York, returns to IDN this week to expand on his views of the future of dispute resolution. In examining nation states as a source of conflicts, Carneiro, AMNH's Curator of South American Ethnology, looks back on 3,500 years and sees "an irresistible trend for the number of political units" to decrease, and for their size to increase. Carneiro tells host Michael McIlwrath how long it will take for the world’s 193 autonomous political units--down from half a million such units in 1500 B.C.—to merge into one, nearly conflict-free world government, and how increasing jobs' specialization fits into the picture.

You're going to get your cross cultural communications wrong. But, according to veteran Australian mediator Joanna Kalowski, the way you get it right after you get it wrong will make the difference in whether those communications and negotiations are successful. This week, Mike McIlwrath has a discussion with Kalowski reflecting her intense mediation experiences across borders and with indigenous people, both in government and in private practice.

This week, IDN host Mike McIlwrath takes on...his boss? Listen in on his discussion with Kenneth S. Resnick, vice president and general counsel of GE Oil & Gas in Florence, Italy. Ken and Mike cover the company's litigation and resolution challenges from the perspective of being a transnational corporation-a company, Mike says, that is global, but also operates as a localized entity in many places. The conversation runs from the large questions of managing risk in accordance with local dispute resolution practices and standards, to case management issues such as staffing and expertise. They also discuss in depth how the company deals with contract issues.

This week, host Mike McIlwrath presents the second and final part of his conversation with Santa Monica attorney-neutral-educator Kenneth Cloke, on "creating levels of trust between parties in conflict." Last week, Ken introduced us to the so-called "cuddle hormone," oxytocin–the release of which he says has a profound effect on mediation processes and social interaction.