Offers in mediation are too often approached with all the coyness of gauche teenagers at a school dance (acknowledging that this metaphor may reveal too much about my own youth!). It need not be like this. Here are some thoughts to ease the pain. Going first is not weakness. All mediations require offers to be... Continue reading

We would like to announce an opening for the position of Associate Editor for the Kluwer Mediation Blog (KMB). The Associate Editor will report directly to the editors Bill Marsh and Nadja Alexander, and work closely with the Kluwer team. In addition, the Associate Editor will regularly liaise with some of the best mediators, mediation... Continue reading

I am not really one for elevator pitches. But I did hear one the other day about creating impact in a very short space of time, and I was struck by its relevance to mediation. Essentially, the message was that the people we meet make up their minds about us based on two key criteria,... Continue reading

In less than two months’ time I will come to the end of a two-year mediation engagement in the Balkans. The conflict in question relates to environmental pollution. The issues are complex and heavily contested, and there are many stakeholders – government, city authorities, environmental groups, investors and business, to name a few. It has... Continue reading

I blogged recently on the importance in mediation of not forgetting what is happening in the other room. It’s an easy mistake to make. Here’s another one that is easy to make. “Assumed motivation”. A lot of stuff happens both in conflicts and the process of their resolution. Things are said and done by each... Continue reading

Mediation can be an intense experience for parties and their advisers. Often there is a lot on the line. In the substance there may be money, control, reputation, pride. In the process, there are challenges such as influencing other parties, getting the best deal possible, making well-informed judgment calls about risk, developing effective offers, and... Continue reading

For once, I seem to have time. No travel, no trips out, no long walks on the hills. Some zoom mediations, granted, but still much more time. And with that, I find myself reflecting on the significance of time in mediation. Time is a major feature in mediation. Indeed, we ourselves have promoted the process... Continue reading

We would like to announce an opening for the position of Assistant Editor for the Kluwer Mediation Blog. The Assistant Editor will report directly to the editors, Bill Marsh and Nadja Alexander, and will work closely with the Kluwer team. The essential duties of the Assistant Editor are: (1) reviewing and editing proposed posts; (2)... Continue reading

This is the second in my short series on using your assets well in a mediation. The first was on the people. This is on the arguments. Let’s start with the legal arguments. As a mediator, I hear many views on the importance or not of deploying legal arguments in mediation. Proponents assert that if... Continue reading

This is the first in a short series of how parties and advisers can best deploy the “assets” at their disposal in a mediation. Naturally, it is written from my perspective as a mediator, and so I recognise that it may look different when you are representing one side in a mediation, rather than in... Continue reading

As mediators, we walk a delicate line between acknowledging and valuing the realities of the past and the present, with all the dysfunction and failings which have contributed to the conflict, and focusing on the present and the future with the opportunities they present to shape something new. Both are important, neither can be short-changed.... Continue reading

One of the privileges of mediating is to watch leaders at work. Every party, every team, has its leader(s). And as any mediator will tell you, the way in which they choose to lead during a mediation – and more widely during the conflict or dispute itself – has a significant impact on the outcome;... Continue reading

Many of us are mourning the recent death of David Richbell, a UK-based mediator and mediation trainer widely known and loved around the world. I was lucky enough to count David as a close friend and colleague. We mediated together, delivered training together, cheered England at rugby together. And so I have had good cause... Continue reading

Bloomberg (not my usual reading fodder, I confess) carried an interesting piece a couple of months ago, entitled “Meet the Real Force Behind the Brexit Talks”. Yes, it was about Brexit (yawn) but it was about an unseen side of the negotiations. Opening with the line “In every negotiation the most important work is done... Continue reading

It’s not easy to blog once a month, even on a subject I love. Often I sit down to write with no real ideas or inspiration. Sometimes I end up that way too (as you may have noticed!). It becomes easy to dread the approach of my monthly publication date. Often the pressure lies in... Continue reading

Over the Christmas break, I had the pleasure of reading Ken Newell’s memoirs, “Captured by a Vision”. Ken was (until his retirement some years ago) a Presbyterian Church minister in Northern Ireland who, out of deeply held conviction arising out of his Christian faith, played a central role in bringing together representatives of both sides... Continue reading

This is the second in a short series of blogs interviewing regular users of mediation about what they really want from mediators and from mediation. We kicked off last month with Rebecca Clark. This month, I have the pleasure of interviewing Michael McIlwrath, who has been the head of litigation for GE Oil & Gas... Continue reading

Like all businesses, mediation ultimately depends upon (and needs to reflect) what the users want from it. That doesn’t of course mean that theirs in the only relevant perspective – mediators also have views on what the process can and should offer. But at the very least it’s a vital part of the equation (I... Continue reading

I (Bill) remember doing my first commercial mediation. I was 29, and in the presence of the four parties and their advisers I felt even younger. It was not lost on me that (as Suzanne Rab recently noted in Do You Need Grey Hairs to Mediate?) people expected someone older to walk into the room.... Continue reading

This is the second in a series of two posts about third party funding (TPF) of litigation Geoff’s Part 1 looked at the principle of TPF. Now mediators Bill Marsh and Geoff Sharp get together to share thoughts on the impact TPF has on the mediation process Whatever else mediation is, it is certainly a... Continue reading