Tracy's Articles
The Results Are in: A Year of Virtual ADR
Global Resolutions is pleased and proud to announce it was among the first of mediation firms to halt in person mediations and quickly transition to the virtual platform when Covid-19 arrived in the United States more than 24 months ago.
Managing Negotiations in Mediation
When sitting as a mediator, help the lawyers be the best negotiators they can be to achieve better results for their clients. Learn strategies to improve their negotiation process.
Building Trust in Negotiations
To achieve client settlement objectives, effective negotiators start the process by establishing a relationship and building trust with opposing counsel.
Effective Practice Tips for your next FINRA Arbitration Hearing
Whether by zoom or in person, arbitration disputes are becoming more complex and requiring more time. Most counsel and arbitrators are familiar with the customary "streamlining techniques" such as: stipulated facts; joint exhibits with joint stipulations for admission at the start of the hearings; direct testimony by Affidavit with live cross examination and re-direct; check clocks; taking witnesses our of order so they only appear once in the hearing experience; reliance on the categorization/legitimacy of business documents/records to avoid the need for verification witnesses, etc.
Creating and Sustaining Civility and Professionalism in Your Practice
It is no secret that tensions in our personal domains are mounting. The challenge to remain civil in conversation, let alone, in litigation, is at its zenith. No longer do we just disagree or adopt a disagreeable demeanor. We are mean. To disagree has been elevated to permanent disdain, or worse, hatred.
Pandemic Pivot: ADR Poised for Prominence During Recovery
On January 1, 2020, “zoom” was a verb, a noise a car makes. Three months later, Zoom be- came a noun. It happened in the blink of an eye, like when Amazon no longer referred to a river in the rainforest, and Apple was no longer a fruit. Just as sud- denly, Corona isn’t a beer served with lime.
Keeping You Safe During the Pandemic Using Virtual Sessions
One of the regrettable consequences of the pandemic is that COVID-19 has become difficult to predict. Information about safety and preventive protocols changes almost daily. Global Resolutions has objectively examined the current health science regarding the virus and will not conduct in-person sessions (as much as we very much miss them) until doing so is safe and worry-free for all participants.
How to Make Virtual Sessions More Personal and Successful
We recommend scheduling and conducting a10-minute virtual practice session and consultation with the Neutral before the virtual session date. This allows you to discuss logistics and address questions about how the virtual platform will be used and how the sessions will run. In the case of arbitrations, all counsel and the Arbitrator can schedule a practice session on the virtual platform to address concerns prior to the scheduled hearing date and to work through witness ordering, access to exhibits and online protocol Orders.
Working the Middle Hours: Keeping Negotiations Going, Late Morning to Late Afternoon
Basic Truths. Much of life is about negotiation. Some negotiations require more active participation than others. For example, “negotiating” one’s way to work in rush hour is a bit different than negotiating the purchase of a car but both require give and take of the stakeholders in order for them to each get what they want. Whether in the dispute arena or the neighborhood, the bottom line is that most negotiation is about getting what we want, or at least getting what we can live with. So we develop instinctive as well as strategic, conscious and subconscious mechanisms to survive in negotiations. And as a result, we consider ourselves pretty good at negotiating because we generally get what we want. When we don’t, the potential for eruption and conflict arise.
Don't Torch the Joint Session
Have you heard? Perhaps you have witnessed or participated in a very disturbing trend in mediation – the avoidance of a joint or general session including all counsel and parties in decision-making. This phenomenon, which is “reshaping” the customary mediation process, is increasingly evident throughout the United States. In our view, this phenomenon is market driven and is resulting in the structural dismantling of the mediation process. While this message may sound a bit like Chicken Little’s warning, we believe that the abandonment of the bedrock foundation of mediation poses a critical danger to the process and the modern mediation movement. This article will discuss why this trend should be reversed and how the reversal could benefit parties, lawyers, and mediators.
The Objectives of This Taxonomy
This Taxonomy of ADR was prepared by the ADR Committee of the Macomb County Bar Association for a number of purposes: to identify the rich diversity of ADR techniques that can be employed by the Bench and the Bar and tailored, staged and “right sized” to meet the particular needs of parties in resolving all or a portion of their dispute; to briefly describe these ADR techniques and suggest the settings in which they might be most effective; and, to encourage creativity by the Bar, the Bench and litigants to explore and experiment with unique forms of ADR that might be mutually shaped by the parties to address their particular needs. In addition, a limited number of samples, drafting checklists and references are provided for the practitioner’s consideration.
