Meet Our Mediators: Shelley Leinicke
“Mediation allows me to use skills and experience in a new way as a neutral. I firmly believe that clients should be encouraged to try to resolve their disputes through negotiation rather than leave their fate to a judge and jury. Mediators can help parties and their counsel to look past the heat of the moment, evaluate a case with a more objective eye, and reach an immediate resolution so that the parties can return to their everyday lives. While it’s often said that a good mediation settlement leaves everyone a bit unhappy, I have yet to see that actually happen. What I have seen both as a mediator and as a participating attorney when I was practicing law, at the successful conclusion of mediation everyone lets out a sigh of relief that the case is resolved, that there are no unknowns or what-ifs about the result, and that everyone can move on.”
Meet Our Mediators: Carl Schwait
In this installment of “Meet Our Mediators”, we learn more about Carl Schwait. Familiar to many of you, Carl joined us recently after a 39-year career as an accomplished personal injury trial attorney and has added to both our professional and geographic scope. Having benefited from the opportunities to learn from one of Florida’s preeminent trial attorneys, Joe Wilcox, the last 26 years saw Carl represent the defense in every manner of personal injury case. Carl’s dedication to the profession also has opened doors, both to serve and to teach.
Meet Our Mediators: Don Weidner
“As we will present our newest panelists first, we begin with Florida State College of Law Dean Emeritus Donald J. “Don” Weidner. Dean Weidner, after a distinguished career in academia and educational leadership joined our team in August. Don has touched the lives of legal practitioners all over, thanks to a teaching career which has gone from being an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law, to serving as associate professor at Cleveland State University, where he taught real estate taxation and finance among other thing, to his storied tenure at FSU, where he rose from being a visiting professor to serving as dean of the law school for almost 25 years. But what I find most fascinating and endearing is his unbridled optimism and well placed confidence. How else can you describe someone who thinks it’s a good idea to buy a 36-foot sail boat, before knowing how to sail, who then becomes a skilled and avid boater. He was not stricken with analysis paralysis, opened a door to an important part of his life, and has even written a short story about that first step. You can find it in the September 2014 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.”
Harvard Professor Addresses ABA Dispute Resolution Section’s Conference
Friday, at our ABA DR Section Spring Conference in New York City, attendees heard from Francesca Gino of the Harvard Business School. Professor Gino spoke on the science of making better decisions, and her talk highlighted the importance of being aware of how we make decisions and to deal with factors that can derail sound decision making. Brain science is important as we are hard-wired in certain ways, and I direct you to my colleague Michelle Jernigan’s related webinar on brain science to learn more. Also this morning, Texas A&M University School of Law was awarded the ABA Representation in Mediation Competition Championship trophy. Again, as a judge, I saw firsthand how law schools are preparing students to serve as effective advocates in mediation. All teams that made the finals in New York had worked hard to advance out of their regional competitions.
ABA Dispute Resolution Section Welcomes U.N. Official and Kicks off Spring Conference With Learning
This morning, attendees of the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution’s 18th Annual Spring Conference in NYC heard from Johnston Barkat, assistant secretary-general of the United Nations. Sharing insights from around the world, he spoke of the importance of many of the keys to dispute resolution. Emotional and cognitive intelligence, safe psychological spaces, diversity of thought, and procedural fairness are not only vital to us all as mediators, but also to the transformation of systems. And later, the first of dozens of concurrent learning systems kicked off our three-day day conference.
We Look Back at UWWM’s 2015
January saw the opening of our current West Palm and Miami offices bringing the number of our South Florida conference rooms to 21. I have enjoyed working in our West Palm, Plantation, and Miami offices and look forward to being there more frequently in 2016.
Here is a partial list of what some of my UWWM colleagues have been up to in 2015.
It’s a Wrap, Seattle
Interested in teaching, learning, or networking with diverse alternative dispute resolution practitioners, educators, and consumers of ADR? Join the ABA Dispute Resolution Section at it’s 18th Annual Spring Conference in New York next April.
Last week, our host city, Seattle, was the perfect backdrop for current and future leaders in the diverse world of ADR to interact and network; the city perfectly reflects the innovative and vibrant Pacific Northwest.
Plenaries, committee meetings, the Legal Educators Colloquium, and Symposium on ADR in the Courts joined the Finals of the National Advocacy in Mediation Competition, the awards luncheon, and dozens of practical, provocative and forward-looking conference sessions.
Pre-Arbitration Preparation — Being a Better Advocate
Efficient arbitration serves the interests of the parties in arbitration. Attorneys and arbitrators should understand what facilitates that goal of efficiency in order to reach it. Counsel should, right out of the box, provide all foundational documents governing the fact there will be an arbitration, such as the agreement or order to arbitrate. Then, on the preliminary case management call, counsel should be prepared to discuss the structure, rules, anticipated motions, dates, the need for third-party subpoenas and authority and geographic implications, discovery expectations, how discovery is to be produced and other issues.
ADR Education on Display in Seattle
Wednesday night (April 16, 2015), four teams of law students were given fact patterns in preparation for the semifinal rounds of the 2015 National Representation in Mediation Competition. Each team, consisting of two students, developed a presentation plan and competed through a seventy-five minute mock mediation today at the 17th Annual Section of Dispute Resolution Spring Conference in Seattle. For the second year in a row, I had the good fortune to serve as a judge in the semifinals.
Advocates, Educators, Students and Neutrals Convene in Seattle
Hundreds of professionals from around the world started arriving in Seattle Wednesday (April 15, 2015) for the 17th Annual Section of Dispute Resolution Spring Conference. Today, they are networking and presenting or attending concurrent sessions ranging from resolving sports disputes and awarding fees in arbitration to dealing with emotions in mediation and managing disputes in developing economies. The sessions will continue through Saturday.