In many settlement negotiations, the two sides narrow their disagreement to a small gap in their positions, a gap so small it pales in comparison to the total amount of money being discussed.  This happens often in divorce mediation, where clients threaten to blow up a multi-million dollar divorce settlement over the last $5,000 disagreement.  Why would anyone do that?  Why would either side let everything fall apart over an amount they'll obviously spend on attorneys if they continue fighting? The reason is that it is seldom about the money, and it is often about what the money represents.  Those last few dollars in a negotiation often represent winning or losing; they represent the potential for acknowledgment or just another rejection; they represent all the giving in that got us here thus far, and the loss that goes with it; and in a divorce those last few dollars potentially represent the true end of the relationship and the last chance to hang on. Ou...

Today is the third Thursday of October, which also happens to be Conflict Resolution Day.  While that may not seem as fun as International Pancake Day , Conflict Resolution Day is an opportunity to think about the challenges we face in our lives, and wonder: Is there a better way to think about conflict;  a model which can free us from our fear of conflict? Conflict is a part of everyday life.  In our individual struggles to survive, grow, connect, and control the world around us, we often find that someone or something is in our way or making it harder to reach our goals.  It is a natural, animal instinct to envision these conflicts as a simple dichotomy: me v. you, us v. them, plaintiff v. defendant, the hero v. the villain, etc.  We see conflict most simply as a tug of war between two positions, two competing interests.  But what if we're thinking about conflict all wrong. If I win, you lose.  If you win, I lose. Picturing conflict ...

There are three typical ways a divorce process can end: Reconciliation, Judgment, or Settlement.  Very few cases reconcile once a divorce process is started, and very few cases go all the way to Judgment.  In other words, most divorce cases settle, either before going to court, or at some time during the court process.  But settlement takes lots of different forms , and those different forms can have a significant impact on whether people feel good about their settlement or not. Many clients and potential clients have asked me if there is any statistical research on outcomes for different processes, or even whether there is any data on whether a particular process is considered more "successful" than other options.  Unfortunately, I am not aware of any large scale study comparing Mediation, Collaborative Law, Arbitration, Self-Help Negotiation and Litigation, or even anything close to comprehensive.  There is some research comparing mediation and litigation...

In most cases, an experienced divorce attorney can tell you after a one hour consultation the range of what you can expect to happen if you go to court.  Good attorneys will give you reasonable expectations of how the court process can go and what it will cost, but even the best attorneys sometimes forget that "what a court can do" and "what a family should do" are not always the same thing. Unfortunately, many people end up feeling that the resolutions crafted by Judges are unfair, even when they "won" the case.  The reason court solutions often feel unfair is because they are limited to the statutes and case law.  Judge's don't have unlimited discretion (or time) to find the best solution for a family.   They have to find the solution that is least offensive within the boundaries of the law. When people choose an out-of-court settlement option, like mediation or collaborative negotiation , one of the advantages is that they don't have to...

Recently I attended my child's first grade open house.  Among the many details about policy, projects and pick-ups, the principal shared an interesting theme that they are working on this year.  He described the PAWS principle that they teach our children (aptly named for a school with a bear mascot). PAWS stands for: P ractice empathy, A ct responsibly, W ork hard, and  S olve problems together These principles struck me because they are so basic that we often take them for granted.  In Collaborative Law and Mediation we live by the PAWS principles but often struggle to boil them down to so simple of a form.  If first graders can get it, though, we should be able to make it this easy for adults. As one six year old recently tried to explain to her fighting parents: "Nobody gets along all the time. But disagreeing sometimes is one thing — treating each other poorly is another."  This viral video of a six year old explaining how to be nice to...

Tom Brady along with the National Football League Player's Association are currently in a federal lawsuit in a U.S. District Court against the National Football League.  The case centers on the appropriate use of power by the NFL commissioner to act as labor arbitrator, but is that really what it is about? How did the loss of a small amount of air in a few footballs balloon into a federal case?   Attorney James M. Lynch of Stevenson, Lynch & Owens, P.C. recently wrote an excellent post outlining the legal arguments that both sides have, and why, in his opinion, Brady has the stronger case:  Brady Federal Deflategate Appeal: A Lawyer’s View .   As a lawyer, I found the analysis intriguing, but as a mediator, I wonder if the legal analysis of this case misses the point. Tom Brady isn't in court to stand up for labor unions.  The fans and the public don't care that much about whether Roger Goodell's decision was consistent with the "practices of industr...