ABA Dispute Resolution Conference Recap - Day 2

Following Thursday's many activities, Friday's agenda followed-up with its own packed and powerful set of sessions. Below is a short recap of the various sessions I was able to attend.

Violence Interrupter Extraordinaire

Kicking off the morning was a buttoned-down bowtie paradigm-shattering plenary presentation by Cobe Williams. Unlike the many business-card-collecting, for-hire ADR practitioners who sat with rapt attention, Cobe employs conflict engagement on the often unforgiving Chicago streets as a Violence Interrupter with the innovative CeaseFire organization.

Featured in a new and roundly acclaimed documentary "The Interrupters," Cobe shared a number of clips from the video detailing his involvement interrupting an imminently violent situation. Throughout the clips and his supplementary commentary, Cobe spoke in a familiar language about his decidedly foreign context. "Preparation," "party self-determination," "trust," "neutrality," "honest listening," "flexibility." These words perfectly reflect the activities and values held by high-rise mediators. They also resonate perfectly with the high-stakes, gang-involved, gun-wielding conflicts in which Cobe skillfully intervenes, often with lifesaving consequence.

For folks interested in learning more about Cobe's work and that of other violence interrupters, I strongly encourage you to attend a local screening or buy the DVD of "The Interrupters." They have also created a supplementary website full of resources, including a community engagement guide (PDF).

Model Forms

From the tough streets to staid courtrooms, I moved next into a session titled: "Some Assembly Required (But Not Much): Model Materials and Their Ideas for Program Design and Evaluation." Hosted by Timothy Hedeen, and featured a panel composed of Philip Moses, CADRE; Jennifer Shack, RSI and presenter of NAFCM's two-part webinar Making the Most of Your Data; and Donna Shestowsky, UCDavis School of Law. The session recounted a number of ongoing projects to produce model forms for use with court-related and specialty mediation contexts. (This session was of particular interest because of NAFCM's own plans to develop model forms for community mediation programs! Stay tuned...)

In addition to a recap of how these projects were developed, Donna also provided a review of some new research she's undertaken that evaluates the attractiveness of different dispute resolution procedures for those in conflict. Her research, which is still being processed, gathered extensive pre- and post-survey responses from over 400 actual disputants from throughout the country who were involved in active court filings. Some of the more interesting findings she was able to report, included:

• The difference in attractiveness between mediation, attorneys' negotiating with clients present, and a judge trial were all statistically insignificant.
• Possible predictors of procedure attractiveness that were evaluated, included: case type, role in case, party type (individual, organization, etc.), opposing party type, defendant or plaintiff, gender, ethnicity, age group, insurance involvement, future relationship, estimated probability of winning, and court location. Interestingly, NONE of these variables predicted how attracted litigants were to using mediation! (If this finding holds throughout her final assessment, it would serve as a strong suggestion to mediation advocates that alternative selling points should be highlighted when attempting to attract parties to the mediation table.)

Mediation in the Arab Spring

Part of the inspiring nature of Mediators Beyond Borders is its ability to connect colleagues and ideas across traditional boundaries. This inspiration was on display in full force during a session titled: "Can Mediation Take Root in the Arab Spring?." Facilitated by Lynn Cole, MBB's new Board President, the session included powerful presentations from women throughout the Middle East, including Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. They each spoke about how mediation and ADR services generally could help enhance their local citizenry's access to justice, and how it could open important dialogues. "As greater acceptance of free expression fills the Middle East," one speaker proffered, "the need for the facilitative tools of dialogue increases."

MBB & Israel's "Mixed Cities"

Rounding out the conference on an international theme, my final session was another MBB event titled: "Cross Cultural Narrative Transformation in Israel's 'Mixed Cities'." This session featured a short intro to narrative mediation, and a more thorough review of one of MBB's projects to support community mediation programs in Israel.

Community mediation has a strong foundation in Israel with 24 local programs, a financial supporter in the Gishurim, and central training and technical assistance coordination offered through Nurit Bachrach's Mosaica Center for Conflict Resolution. MBB's original project involved developing a training curriculum for Jewish-Arab co-mediators to mediate Jewish-Arab disputes. As MBB continues their connection with our Israeli counterparts, additional support is being explored, including possible adoption of Mediate.com's Case Manager via NAFCM's member pricing, and a more formal exchange of experiences between Israeli and U.S. community mediation programs. Both of these possibilities are terribly exciting, and I look forward to seeing how they develop!

While there wasn't enough time to thoroughly unpack the concepts of narrative mediation, a few key points were shared that caught my attention, including:

• Narrative mediation helps us reduce the clarity of rigid, dualistic, and localized conceptualizations of the world, and then helps rebuild a more dynamic, complex, and global understanding.
• Narrative mediation helps complexify one's narrative. That complexification broadens perspective and helps one gain agency over the conflict rather than the other way around.
• A new Center for the Study of Narrative and Conflict Resolution has been established at George Mason's S-CAR.

Finally, this session also included an elegant vision for Mediators Beyond Borders, which I captured as: "In response to conflict, rather than sending military might around the world, MBB seeds and supports mediators' minds." This is a wonderful description of the great work MBB performs under the strong leadership of our good friend and colleague Charlie Pillsbury. In as much as their vision dovetails with NAFCM's own mission to support peacemakers, I personally look forward to discovering opportunities where our collective efforts may enhance our respective aims.

Community Spottings

Regularly billed as the world's largest ADR conference, this year's gathering included a number of our community mediation friends and aligned colleagues. Some of the hallway spottings included: Alyson Carrel, Center for Conflict Resolution (Chicago); Cheryl Cutrona, Good Shepherd Mediation Program (Philadelphia); Lou Gieszl and Rachel Wohl, MACRO; Alan E. Gross, New York Peace Institute (NYC);  Timothy Hedeen, NAFCM Elder; Sandy Heierbacher, NCDD; Megan Johnston, Northern Virginia Mediation Service (Fairfax); Mark Kleiman, Community Mediation Services (Queens, NY) and NAFCM Elder; Jim Melamed and Clare Fowler, Mediate.com; Jody B. Miller, Mediation Center of Dutchess County (Poughkeepsie, NY); Charlie Pillsbury, MBB; Cobe Williams, Violence Interrupter with Cease Fire (Chicago); and Susan Yates, Jennifer Shack, and Heather Scheiwe Kulp, RSI. There were likely many other friendly passings and wonderful smiles that've I've missed here, and for that, my sincere apologies. (Feel free to jog my feeble mind in the comments below!)

If you weren't able to join us in D.C. this year, I hope you'll be able to be part of the Section's 15th Annual Spring Conference in Chicago on April 3-6, 2013! I'll be there taking notes, representing our community network, and (hopefully) catching up with you in the hallways!

In community,

Justin R. Corbett

Executive Director, NAFCM

ABA Dispute Resolution Conference Recap - Day 1

Over 900 mediators and conflict professionals descended upon our nation's Capitol last week, attending the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution's Annual Conference. From bowtie and powersuit arbitrators to casual wear violence interrupters, the conference is regularly billed as the largest annual gathering of dispute resolution professionals in the world. With over 100 concurrent sessions, packed plenaries, a booth burgeoning exhibitors' hall, and attendees from around the world, this year's conference had something for everyone. I'm particularly pleased to have represented NAFCM and share with my community mediation colleagues all the latest updates from this year's conference. 

Below is an update from Thursday, my first day on scene following a restful redeye. It'll be joined by an update from Friday's speakers, sessions, and interactions, as well as a stream of quick hit tweets from throughout the conference.

Negotiating with Terrorists & Mothers-in-Law

Thursday morning kicked off with a plenary speech by Moty Cristal, an experienced Israeli crisis negotiator with a penchant for stand-up. Moty recounted his numerous dealings with labeled terrorists groups and loose-knit groups of bad actors, specifically detailing his experiences negotiating with these counterparts in low-to-no trust environments. One of his takeaways from these hostage-involved and otherwise harrowing negotiations is an appreciation for the difference between Respect and Trust. Trust, Moty posits, places the burden of responsibility upon your counterpart; it beholds the other to act in a way conforming to your expectations. Their failure to conform to expectations damages your trust in them. Respect, on the other hand, retains an internal locus of responsibility. It is an active extension toward the other without (at least initially) the expectation of reciprocal or conforming behavior for those upon which it is bestowed. Under such a framework, you can respect a counterpart during a negotiation without necessarily trusting she will desist from conflict-related behaviors. 

This distinction is important for Moty, and other conflict professionals, because it opens the possibility to extend basic, humanizing, and collaboration inspiring (if not inducing) respect toward momentary or even mortal enemies without the further more cognitively challenging act of also trusting that your counterparts will subsequently act in a particular fashion. Of course, presuming a negotiated settlement is respectfully reached, one would hope to trust their counter would comply with the terms. And indeed, one could logically presume the possibility of such compliance is enhanced following a respectful resolution. Under Moty's model, however, the two need not necessarily be linked to at least initiate the engagement. 

Civil Discourse & Public Conflict

Following Moty's discussion on respect and trust, I made a beeline to the front row of a panel discussion on Civil Discourse and Public Conflict. Facilitated by one of my personal pantheons of conflict theory, Richard Reuben, the front table was full of civil discourse luminaries, such as Susan Carpenter, Anne Gosline, Sandy Heierbacher, Matt Leighninger, and Susan Podziba.

Speaking to a packed room, these leaders in civil discourse, deliberative democracy, dialogue & deliberation, participatory government, and other descriptors of constructive, large-scale public engagement engaged their own colleagues in detailed Q&A. They also shared their 30 second must-know recaps of this category of early-stage conflict engagement processes. Some of these recaps included the following:

• "There is a vast set of well-established tools -- 30 years in the making -- which can be used to address the many public conflicts facing us today. It is beholden upon us to raise awareness of, disseminate, and utilize these tools.
• "'Civic Fusion' is the goal for all these processes. It's a way for folks to connect despite -- or even because of -- their differences, to humanize, and deepen understanding."
• "These processes are a constructive way for folks to discuss fundamental social differences."
• "Careful assessment should occur to fit the appropriate process to the problem it seeks to address."

Participants were (and readers are) encouraged to learn more about the various discourse processes and resources. Great starting points are the Deliberative Democracy Consortium and the National Coalition of Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD).

The Future of Mediation Research

Community mediation programs are always on the lookout for new research to help contextualize and validate their impact. The final morning session -- part two of a mediation research mini-conference -- envisioned what the future of that research will look like not only for community folks, but practitioners and academics in all contexts. The panel of academics tackled a broad range of audience-driven issues, including the need for greater practitioner access to the newest research, connecting researchers with interested subjects/sites, and speculating on the up-and-coming in vogue research focus areas.

Some of my session notes were as follows:

• Theory to practice jam sessions. Could be a regular, scheduled hangouts with a dedicated online discussion group. This could be opened to a very wide group of interested academics and practitioners.
• Cultural Competence: Is it exclusively a passive competency, or does it require of a culturally competent mediator an active, responsive adaptation of process and/or skills?
• Where's the future of mediation research headed? (1) Long-term impacts, (2) Unpacking the black box of the mediation session, (3) Moving beyond anecdotal, and (4) Affect of party preparation on outcome and perceptions of the experience.
• Resonant research will help move the field from an art to a science.
• How does mediation compare to extant, popularly ascribed settlement processes rather than the more traditional mediation v litigation comparison?

Regulating Mediators

Capping the day was an afternoon-long town hall meeting which tacked the ever-timely and polarizing (yes, even for mediators) topic of regulation. Facilitated by AmericaSpeaks and including 100 participating mediators and arbitrators, this ambitious event was organized using a dozen or so practice-oriented tables, each with their own impartial table-side facilitators; nifty electronic keypads; a designated thematic review group; and near instant display of aggregated input. The near three-hour session was an engaging, insightful, and data-rich -- if not decisive -- experience. Not to let the conversation fade, the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution's task force on regulation will use the info gathered during the session as they continue their discussions about whether and how to move forward on this issue.

Not wanting to wait for any task force proposal, I hurriedly took copious notes on the detailed feedback received from the meeting's many questions. Here are a few of the more interesting aggregated responses revealed during the meeting:

Notable participant demographics:

• 100 Participants (89 mediators, 11 arbitrators)
• Only 9% younger than 35
• 65% were attorneys
• 36% actively volunteer
• 61% began their ADR involvement through legal work, while 17% were first-career ADR practitioners

Regulation is important to: ("Me" refers to town hall participants)

                                   Me          Clients     ADR Profession

Strongly Agree           15%           26%              24%
Agree                         18%           29%              31%
Neutral                       24%           16%              14%
Disagree                     18%           13%              13%
Strongly Disagree       26%           16%              19%

Mediators should be regulated:

21% - Strongly agree
24% - Agree
17% - Neither agree nor disagree
14% - Disagree
24% - Strongly disagree

If a national regulatory system were developed, would you seek to become certified?

52% - Definitely
27% - Maybe
16% - No
  5% - Don’t Know

Mediator Competency Themes (choose top two):

53% - Listen openly, reflectively, and without judgement
25% - Intellectual acuity/flexibility
24% - Competence in the process
22% - Neutrality
19% - Facilitate communications
12% - Engendering trust
12% - Professional Experience
11% - Comfort with tension/conflict
  8% - Sense of ethics
  6% - Patience

Regulation would help which of the following (choose top three; mediators' responses):

18% - Ensure adherence to professional standards
17% - Enhance the quality of practice
16%- Restrict entry to the profession
16% - Enhance the public image of the profession
16% - Protect consumers from unethical practice
  9% - Clients could make better decision about services
  5% - Increase compensation for practitioners
  4% - Increase practitioners' competitive edge
  1% - Increase entry to the profession

What are the two best ways to measure the competency of mediators?

21% - Mentoring or supervision
18% - Program evaluation criteria/Experience
14% - Performance tests or live or taped demonstrations
14% - Training requirements
13% - User evaluations
  8% - Continuing education or training
  5% - References
  4% - Degrees/education
  1% - Complaint procedures
  3% - None of the above— Mediators should not be regulated

A single national regulation system, if developed, should apply to which of the following? (Select all that apply)

31% - Entry level
21% - Every 5 years for active professionals
21% - Part-time practitioners
18% - Seasoned practitioners
  9% - Other

There was a lot of interesting feedback from the town hall that deserves further discussion. For example:

• While 38% of mediators disagreed they should be regulated, only 16% replied they definitely would not apply to such a system if implemented. Does this suggest to possible regulators that a "build it and they will apply" approach will work, regardless dissonance during the design phase?
• The third most desired role for regulation is to "restrict entry to the profession." How does this jive with community mediation's fundamental drive to train leagues of neighbors, family, and friends to become both formal and informal nearby mediators?
• Just over half of the participants identified listening skills as a top competency for mediators. Beyond that skill set, however, there was little agreement as to what else is important for mediators. Why is there such disagreement about key competencies?
• Why is it that fewer than a fifth of participants believed "seasoned practitioners" should be regulated? What implications would arise if a two-tier system of regulation were to be developed for mediators of varying levels of experience?

After jotting the above notes, I learned a summary Preliminary Report of the session would be shared with participants. If you're interested in this topic, do be sure to give it a thorough read. This is the same info potential regulating bodies, including (possibly) the ABA's SDR, will review when designing any future regulatory scheme.

What are your thoughts? Is mediator regulation an idea whose time has come? Would such a system adversely affect community mediation programs or their volunteer mediators? What, if any, community-related special considerations should be built into any future regulatory system? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

In community,

Justin R. Corbett

Executive Director, NAFCM

ABA Dispute Resolution Conference Recap - Day 2

The second full day of general sessions is now a wrap at the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution's Spring Conference. What a day it was! From complexity theory to therapeutic dogs, I'm flying away with some interesting experiences and truly out-of-the-box thoughts. I'm also leaving with some new and renewed connections with colleagues involved in or supportive of community mediation.

Here's the community mediation recap for day two. Share your thoughts and respond to the questions by submitting a comment!

Topic: Engaging Conflict Before It Matures - Using Deliberative Dialogue to Assist Communities and Members of the Armed Services Bridge their Differing Cultures

Question: What is your community doing to help service members re-integrate into civilian life following deployment(s)?  Is there a way your program may be able to plug-in to and supplement these efforts?

Question: Could multi-stakeholder community dialogues focusing on the challenges facing re-integrating service members help bridge the military-civilian cultural divide? 

Resource: NAFCM & the ACR Community Section's co-hosted teleseminar on Mediating Military Personnel-Involved Conflicts.

Resource: Learn about NAFCM's previous work supporting the re-integration of reservist service members.

Topic: Conflict Resolution and Creativity as Emergent Characteristics of Weak-Tie Networks and Small Worlds

Question: How many community dispute resolution centers are engaged in conflict prevention work, and what (beyond training) are they doing on this front?

Question: What is the right mix of conflict prevention, conflict engagement, and conflict resolution services?  Is there a "right" or "optimal" mix of these services for the entire field, or is it inherently contextually/community-based?

Resource: The Werner Institute for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution

Topic: Stories Mediators Tell

Question: Do you share your mediator stories?  If so, with whom (mediation program staff, fellow volunteers, others)?

Question: Would there be value in NAFCM creating a new repository of community mediation stories and/or outcomes?  Could we do such a thing and ensure confidentiality?

Resource: Medley of Mediation Stories created from participants of the NAFCM and VOMA listserves.

Resource: How would you categorize your favorite community mediation story? Love fest, horror novel, heart-warming, pure comedy, something else? Share your favorite story headline!

Finally, there were dozens of hallway conversations that kept the ideas flowing and connections strong.  In between sessions I was able to further the community mediation connection with JAMS Foundation's dedicated staff, Mediate.com's tech marvels, the nation's foreclosure mediation guru, court ADR resource and research powerhouses, and folks from CADRE, the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution, Pepperdine's Straus Institute, Creighton's Werner Institute, and many other brilliant and wonderful colleagues.

One specific conversation leaving me both smiling and scratching my head was with a mediator who uses trained, therapy dogs to ease tensions that arise during mediations. She said these dogs are trained to walk toward those expressing anger and calmly place their heads upon the laps of those whose anger is rising. "Who can stay mad when there's a cute dog calmly sitting by your side," she asked. Good point! Made me wonder if these pups were simply more advanced versions of koosh balls many mediation programs keep table-side to ease table tensions.  Also had me scratching my head about whether such purposeful use of service animals by the mediator may run afoul of any standards or ethical guides. While allergies may be at risk, confidentiality, it's safe to assume, wouldn't be jeopardized!

Throughout the conference we were also providing micro-updates and interesting links on our Twitter account.  Don't miss a quip!  Follow us as we head to other conferences and continue our exciting work.  

If yesterday's overview and today's recap have you feeling you missed out, be sure to mark your calendar for next year's 14th Annual Spring Conference in Washington D.C. on April 18-21, 2012. We'll reach out and work with the Section to find ways we can make next year's conference an even better, more accessible event for community mediation folks, especially those near our nation's capital.

Enjoy the weekend!

In community,

Justin R. Corbett

Executive Director, NAFCM

ABA Dispute Resolution Conference Recap - Day 1

The American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution's 13th Annual Spring Conference is in full swing here in Denver! With the first full day of regular sessions down, I'm here to report the community mediation angle and share our thoughts on the latest topics entering the collective conversations. Feel free to use the comment feature to provide feedback or answer some of the questions below.

Basic Setup: The community mediation crowd tends to be comparably smaller at ABA conferences than at other national gatherings, such as the Association for Conflict Resolution's Annual Conference. Still, for those able to swing it, there's plenty of good sessions that address community mediation-related topics. This year, you can find several restorative justice, research, ethics, and emerging practice areas that'll inspire your program and whet your apetite for continuing education.

Who's Who: NAFCM is here to help keep community mediation on the broader ADR agenda. Luckily, we have several colleagues joining us in those efforts. Tim Hedeen and Debora Brownyard are at least two of NAFCM's Board Elders making the rounds. Representatives from numerous community mediation programs are also engaged in the session shuffle, including Brad Heckman and crew from Safe Horizon (soon to be the New York Peace Institute come July), Tobi Inlender and staff from the Center for Civil Mediation, Community Service Programs, and likely several others. There's also strong community mediation supporters here, such as the JAMS Foundation, Resolution Systems Institute (RSI), MACRO, and Mediators Beyond Borders, to name a few.

Here are some of the topics I've heard and provocative questions I'm now asking of community mediation:

Topic: Conflict, Retribution, & Spiritual Traditions. 

Question: Are (self-) interest-based approaches toward conflict resolution truly universally applicable?

Question: Should community mediation programs develop specialized services to provide non-neutral neutrals for those clients' whose cultural or religious norms expect vested third-parties?

Resources: Hawaiian Ho'oponopono, Balinese Hindu Banjars, Japanese Zen, Arabic Sulhas

Topic: Manipulation and Coercion in Mediation - Strategy or Sin?

Question: If coercion happens in the mind of the coerced, what innocuously intended mediator actions might be interpreted by one or more party as being coercive?

Question: Where do you draw the line? Should community mediators suggest solutions, pressure parties, suppose non-settlement outcomes, or engage in other similar actions to get the mediation 'resolved'?  

Resource: Database of Mediator Ethics Opinions (not necessarily community-focused, but still good)

Topic: Accessing Justice through Mediation. 

Question: How does community mediation fit within the larger concept of social justice?

Question: How integrated with traditional legal systems should the community mediation field be, given concerns over potential co-optation and the (at least perceived) 'legalizing' of community mediation services? Is there a bright line beyond which we must resist integration...even if it would seem to provide greater access to justice? 

Resource: Accessing Justice through Mediation - Pathways for Poor and Low-Income Disputants

Topic: Helping At-Risk Families Help Themselves

Question: How many community mediation programs partner with child welfare and the family court system?

Question: What creative uses of our conflict engagement skills can we envision for disputes involving foster placement, child/social worker, and related systemic conflicts?

Topic: The Mediation Post-Mortem - A Model for Enhancing Mediation Learning and Practice

Question: Are there micro or meta conflict patterns we see in community mediation but haven't systemically addressed?  (As a field, community mediation mediates thousands of conflicts each year and hears tens of thousands of 'conflict stories'.  Though each is intimately personal for the participants, are there larger  trends we're failing to acknowledge?  Given confidentiality issues, how could we even know?) 

Question: Personally, do community mediators do enough self-reflection (or "intervision," as the Austrian's call it) to continually improve their capacity to help?  Programmatically, should we build in more formal opportunities to engage in such reflection?  

Closing out the day's session was the Mediation Plenary, at the beginning of which the Conflict Resolution Center in Minneapolis was recognized for it's video: The Power of Mediation.  This video won first prize in the Section's Second Annual Mediation Video Contest on YouTube! Unable to attend the conference personally, Karmit Bulman, Executive Director of CRC, asked that I receive the award on her behalf.  I did so with the following sentiment:

I am very pleased and honored to accept this award on behalf of the Conflict Resolution Center, which serves the broader Minneapolis region. CRC’s video, The Power of Mediation, is an exceptional example of what we do as mediators, why we do it, and, indeed, the great potential our entire field represents for those caught in harmful conflicts. 

Each year, this conference convenes practitioners from all corners of our field.  The Conflict Resolution Center’s corner is community mediation, a sector composed of roughly 400 community mediation programs serving tens of thousands of neighbors, family members, and many others each year.  CRC’s specific work in Minneapolis is of exceptional quality and solidly represents our field to those with whom it interacts, partners, and serves.  It’s now award-winning video as you’ve seen, is, of comparable quality and representation for all of us. 

Thank you for recognizing the Conflict Resolution Center and its video The Power of Mediation.  Thank you to the ABA’s Section of Dispute Resolution for choosing CRC’s video to sit atop its broad public platform.  And thank you to each of you for all you do to help those in conflict.

I'm looking forward to the second full day of events!  I'll post a recap for Friday's developments, as well.

In community,

Justin R. Corbett

Executive Director, NAFCM