Event Information:
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Sun26Jun2016New York Law School
Lawline's ADR Day: Effective Representation in Mediation & Arbitration
Mr. Baum was delighted to spearhead, produce and participate in an all-day program in celebration of Lawline’s ADR Day. The event brought together esteemed ADR practitioners and distinguished advocates from the employment and insurance arenas to deliver a six part program focusing on effective representation in mediation and arbitration.
Mr. Baum had the pleasure of kicking off the program by presenting an overview of the dispute resolution spectrum, negotiation skills, impasse breaking techniques and mistakes even good mediators make. They presented not only concrete mediator skills but also an overarching vision of mediation and mediation philosophy, and insight into mediator orientation and negotiation theory that provide guidance to representatives and mediators alike for this fluid, dynamic, creative, and meaningful process of dispute resolution. You can find the PowerPoint for this portion of the presentation here: Special Tips for Representing Parties in Mediation
In the second segment, Mr. Baum moderated a panel with experienced employment counsel Andrea Papparella and Lou Pechman who gave sound advice on how best to represent parties in employment mediation. Ms. Papparella and Mr. Pechman, embracing experience representing claimants and respondents, shared their tips and cautions on how best to prepare for mediation, engage in effective opening statements, decide on whether to use joint session or caucuses, engage in productive negotiations, bring home strengths of their legal alternatives, dig for interests, handle emotions, guide their clients, get past impasse, and bring home a reasonable resolution of their matters. This segment’s PowerPoint can be found here: Effective Representation in Employment Mediations
In the final segment of the morning session, Mr. Baum moderated a panel with Chuck Platto, an experienced insurance attorney and mediator, and Robert Stern, a dean of the subrogation claimant’s bar, who offered reliable advice on how best to represent parties in insurance mediation. The panelists – with a practical focus on insurance matters – shared their tips and cautions on how best to prepare for mediation, develop necessary demands and reserves, engage in effective opening statements, make best use of joint session and caucuses, engage in productive negotiations, bring home strengths of their legal alternatives, prepare for and obtain helpful risk and transaction cost analysis from the mediator, guide their clients, get past impasse, and bring home a reasonable resolution of their matters. The following link will take you to the Insurance PowerPoint: Effective Representation in Insurance Mediations
Eminent arbitrators, Charlie Moxley and Edna Sussman, joined forces to deliver the arbitration skills portion of the program. The presentation consisted of a detailed exploration of effective approaches that arbitration counsel can use in the main stages of the arbitration process, including the drafting of arbitration clauses; avoiding the pitfalls of non-compliance with “step-clauses” as to negotiation and mediation that appear in many arbitration clauses; harnessing the rules of the applicable arbitration providers in the particular case; drafting arbitration pleadings that capture the arbitrators’ hearts and minds from the outset; seeking interim relief in court and in arbitration tribunals when necessary; representing clients in the preliminary hearing in such a way as to obtain the scope of process and schedule most suited to one’s client’s needs in the particular case; obtaining the amount of discovery and motion practice in the case most helpful to one’s client; obtaining or avoiding confidentiality in arbitration, depending upon the needs of one’s client; effectively representing clients at arbitration hearings, including examining fact and expert witnesses, using exhibits, including demonstrative exhibits, and countering the trial tactics of one’s adversary; and effectively communicating with arbitrators in representing clients in arbitration, both through written and oral submissions in all phases of the case. The arbitration PowerPoint can be found at the following link: Best Practices of Representatives in Arbitration
Distinguished arbitrators and counsel – Dan Kolb, Edna Sussman, and Charles Moxley, Jr. – brought their experience to bear in the arbitration ethics segment of the program. They reviewed unique ethical issues relating to arbitration and what the advocate can expect from the process in view of ethical considerations. In addition, they introduced and applied ethical norms expressed in the ABA/AAA Code of Ethics for Arbitrators and the International Bar Association Guidelines for Conflicts of Interest in International Arbitration. Finally, they considered how disclosure requirements may vary across jurisdictions and highlight the risk of insufficient disclosures leading to challenges to the arbitrators and applications to vacate awards. The arbitration ethics PowerPoint can be found here: Arbitration Ethics
The final act of the day saw Mr. Baum and Dan Kolb present a segment on mediation ethics. Mediation requires conflicting parties to swim in the waters of trust. Where trust might be said to be at the heart of ethics, no course on mediation would be complete without an exploration of essential ethical issues in mediation. Messrs. Baum and Kolb reviewed the chief ethical issues to which all mediators should be sensitive. Guided by the AAA/ABA/SPIDR (ACR) Standards of Conduct for Mediators, they explored these issues and standards. The mediation ethics PowerPoint can be accessed here: Mediation Ethics