Building a Golden Bridge and other lessons from Dr. William Ury
The hills above Edinburgh, Scotland were bursting in the monochromatic splendor of bright yellow flowers, announcing the arrival of spring. In their shadow sat the Scottish Parliament building, where we were assembled for the spring conference of the International Academy of Mediators. Dr. William Ury, noted author, speaker, and mediator of international conflicts, gave the […]
Turning Ideas into Action; Thoughts from Edinburgh
“Support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict and inspire hope where there is despair” Nelson Mandela During a recent conference of the International Academy of Mediators in Edinburgh, Scotland, I was asked to lead a discussion aimed at inspiring some of the world’s most successful commercial mediators to redirect their […]
Dana Curtis, Mediation as a Way of Rebuilding Relationships
Another one of our exceptional Edwards Mediation Academy instructors is Dana Curtis. Dana was among the first attorneys in the U.S. to devote her career exclusively to mediation, and she began her full-time mediation practice in 1991. She has been a teacher of mediation, negotiation and other conflict management programs for over 25 years, including […]
Solving Social Challenges Through Collaboration
This past week, I was fortunate enough to participate in Convergence Center for Policy Resolution’s leadership council meeting in Washington, DC. It was a truly uplifting and inspirational day of conversation. Founded in 2009, Convergence is a non-profit organization that uses mediation skills (respectful dialogue and listening for the most part) to build trust, identify […]
Champions of Peace
In the back of an old church, off the main square in a small village in Bosnia, sat a village elder. The year was 1999, and his unofficial role in war-torn Bosnia was resolving the type of local inter-ethnic disputes that had recently divided the former Yugoslavia. The elder had no way of knowing, at […]
Translating the American Experience
Following my recent post on teaching mediation skills in Austria, I received a number of similar responses, the central theme of which questions how I can translate the American mediation experience into a different cultural paradigm. The answer to this question begins with an understanding of the mediators mind and the concept that whether in […]
Life’s Lessons on Access to Justice
In April 1976, The Pound Conference, which was named in honor of Roscoe Pound, the reforming Dean of Harvard Law School in the 1920s and 30s, was held to create a conversation about the need for reform in our judicial system. At the conference, Professor E.A. Sanders, founder of the Harvard Program on Negotiation, proposed […]
Lessons From Rwanda
Rwanda is a country of a thousand hills and beautiful mountains, endlessly terraced by farmers. Young children running everywhere, wearing brightly colored school uniforms. Women with babies strapped to their backs, balancing loads on top of their heads. It’s an impressively clean country, free of trash (plastic bags are banned from use here). A visitor […]
The color of conflict?
Black on blue. Blue on black. Blue on red. Red on blue. No, it’s not opening night at a museum of modern art, it’s a colorful reminder of how deeply divided our nation has become. Less than three weeks’ post-election, this country remains characterized by increased rhetoric, public demonstrations and incidents of intolerance and hate. […]
Hope and Inspiration in the Land of the Aztecs
This past week I was invited by my friend and colleague, Fernando Navarro, a former Weinstein International Fellow, to Mexico City to teach and lecture to mediators, attorneys and law students. The topic? How to advance the culture of commercial mediation in their legal environment. My first presentation was an early morning lecture to ANADE, […]