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Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Abstract

Let me begin by declaring my biases. First, I am a dissatisfied consumer of mediation services, having represented both employment discrimination and family law clients in mediations. The mediators' rapid retreat to caucus, their tendency to incorrectly evaluate my clients' cases, and their strong push for particular settlement structures while simultaneously proclaiming process neutrality, all too frequently have left me (and my clients) disappointed and disillusioned. Second, I am a chronicler of "mediation car wrecks" - a voyeur, if you will, of those times when mediations go so badly that the parties end up disputing about them in court. Third, I am a regulator-having been since 1999 a member of Minnesota's State Supreme Court Alternative Dispute Resolution ("ADR") Review Board, called upon to both investigate and determine whether mediators (and other neutrals) have violated state ethics rules. Fourth, I have an inherent suspicion of anything that is too politically popular, which comes from a long history of always supporting losing candidates (other than the late Paul Wellstone, my beloved Senator). Finally, my pre-law days involved political and field organizing on intelligence agency oversight issues, (at a much different time in our history when the Church and Pike Committee reports had just been issued and folks were sensitive to things like civil liberties) which gives me a bit of a conspiracy theory approach to the world and a "fundamental rights" background as well.

Disciplines

Commercial Law | Contracts | Dispute Resolution and Arbitration | International Law | Law | Law and Society | Legal Profession

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