International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution

Part 2: William Ury returns to discuss negotiating with difficult people. The co-author of "Getting to Yes" this week turns to practice pointers. Here's what you need to do to get to your Batna - your best alternative to a negotiated agreement.

Negotiation legend William Ury joins International Dispute Negotiation host Michael McIlwrath for the first of two parts. Listen now, because Part 2 will be here soon, on Monday, Dec. 5 In this first episode, the co-author of the essential ADR practitioner's book, "Getting to Yes," discusses building credibility and trust in negotiations; reducing tensions at the bargaining table, and what happened after President Carter asked him to mediate a standoff in Venezuela between millions of President Hugo Chavez's supporters and the opposition.

The International Dispute Negotiation podcast celebrates its 100th episode with a look at the use of conflict resolution techniques in the fight against the teaching of creation science and intelligent design.

IDN Episode No. 99, featuring Gary Born, a partner and chairman of the International Arbitration Group at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr in London, discussing a pledge that would make arbitration the default dispute resolution process in international commercial matters.

Why not a broader commitment to making international commercial arbitration the default rule--not the exceptional rule but the default rule--for resolving an important category of . . . international commercial disputes between an important category of players? Well, why not? International Dispute Negotiation host Michael McIlwrath's guest in this new IDN episode, No. 98, is Gary Born, a partner and chairman of the International Arbitration Group at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. He is based in London. They discuss pledging to arbitrate, similar to the CPR Institute's mediation-centric Corporate Policy Statement on Alternatives to Litigation.

The guest for 2011's first podcast is Jurriaan Braat, a partner in Omni Bridgeway Holding BV, a privately held consulting firm in the Hague, Netherlands, that provides helpits in collecting foreign debt, including judgments, and foreign arbitration awards.

This week's new International Dispute Negotiation podcast debunks the push for products and services to address electronically stored information in cases involving international arbitration. The podcast makes the case that Just Say No is the real answer to questions about E-discovery in cross-border ADR.

In the third of his three-part return visit to IDN, Clark Freshman-- professor at Hastings College of the Law and a consultant with the Paul Eckman Group LLC, both in San Francisco--returns to discuss how to detect when your adversary is lying.

From fear to happiness: Prof. Clark Freshman of Hastings College of the Law and a consultant with the Paul Eckman Group LLC, both in San Francisco, returns to discuss how he trains people to spot emotions in negotiations.

In the first of three parts, Prof. Clark Freshman of Hastings College of the Law and a consultant with the Paul Eckman group, both in San Francisco, explains how he trains people to spot emotions in negotiations. This week, Freshman discusses with IDN host Mike McIlwrath provocations that make negotiators afraid, and which breed contempt. Next episode, he will examine how negotiators conceal their emotions, including dishonesty. And Part III will conclude with a discussion of happiness in negotiations, and what it can mean; which isn't always happy.

In this week's Part II, IDN podcast host Mike McIlwrath, who is senior counsel at GE Infrastructure Oil and Gas, concludes his interview with his GE colleague Jay Brudz, senior counsel overseeing legal technology at the parent company. They discuss the future of legal technology in corporate law departments, and provide an inside look at how one of the world's largest companies deals with legal costs and management issues.

In episode 91 of CPR's International Dispute Negotiation podcast, hosted by Mike McIlwrath, Jay Brudz, senior counsel overseeing legal technology at General Electric Co, discusses the state of the art in dispute management from a corporate law department perspective.

Shortly after the CPR Institute's Annual Meeting early this year, IDN host Mike McIlwrath sat down for a discussion on the future of U.S. arbitration with Thomas J. Stipanowich, academic director of the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, at the Pepperdine University School of Law, in Malibu, Calif. Tom and Mike discuss in detail how domestic arbitration can be improved with the American College of Commercial Arbitrators' 2009 protocols for expeditious cost-effective commercial arbitration.

Jennifer Kirby, a Paris-based partner of London's Herbert Smith LLP, and former deputy secretary general of the International Chamber of Commerce's Court of International Arbitration, returns for Part II of "How Many Arbitrators?" The focus is on choosing a tribunal, and addresses why you want to negotiate for a sole arbitrator.

Jennifer Kirby, a Paris-based partner of London's Herbert Smith LLP, and former deputy secretary general of the International Chamber of Commerce's Court of International Arbitration, joins host Mike McIwrath to discuss arbitration strategy.

Caroline Rees, director of the Governance & Accountability Program at Harvard University's Corporate Social Responsibility initiative, joins International Dispute Negotiation host Mike McIlwrath to discuss years of efforts and learning on a very tough topic, making development work better with indigenous cultures.

In the second of a two-part discussion, U.K. author Richard Susskind visits International Dispute Negotiation host Michael McIlwrath to discuss managing law firms and corporate law departments, technology, and the billable hour.

In the first of two parts, U.K. author Richard Susskind visits Mike McIlwrath and International Dispute Negotiation to discuss his unique view of systemic shifts in legal management.

Host Mike McIlwrath's guest for International Dispute Negotiation #84 is Glenn H. Shepard Jr., a medical anthropologist, who studies healing customs and traditions around the world. He has lived with the Matsigenka in Peru, a tribe that deals with conflict in an interesting way. The Matsigenka don't show emotions in public. That's bad manners. Disputes are resolved by first by bottling them up, occasionally with the help of medicinal plants that relieve stress and eliminate the angry feelings. Shepard shares an interesting story about the plants and his own central nervous system. A public beer bash is held. Drunkenness and the court of public opinion provides a route to resolution. Turns out we can learn a lot from this, as the Matsigenka are modernizing their processes with the use of third party neutral-like leaders.

London mediator and author Jane Gunn discusses the principles in her new book, "How to Avoid Bedlam in the Boardroom and Boredeom in the Bedroom."

Part 2 of a discussion on domestic and international disputes in the entertainment field with NBC Universal attorneys, Susan E. Weiner, executive vice president and deputy general counsel, and David L. Burg, who is senior vice president for litigation.

Disputes at a television network attract a great deal of attention, and need a great deal of conflict management skills. Not to mention cutting-edge tools. Two top lawyers at NBC Universal Inc. talk discovery, arbitration, mediation, and the nature of business disputes in the first of two parts.

IDN 80 guest Stefano Azzali explains the ADR innovations used by the Milan Chamber of Commerce's Court of National and International Arbitration. The Italy-based regional ADR provider is a lot more versatile than its name suggests. Azzali, who is the chamber court's secretary general, describes how mediation has become the the arbitration court's biggest growth area.

Understand the brain, make better choices in ADR. In Part 2 of his discussion with the principals behind the nonprofit Master Mediation Institute, Robert A. Creo and Monique McKay, International Dispute Negotiation host Michael McIlwrath looks at the science of decision making--and "the science behind mediators" sense." As Mike noted in Part I last week, this subject "could be a game changer."

This week's podcast focuses on recent initiatives exploring the science of decision making and conflict resolution. Pittsburgh attorney-neutral and CPR website Master Mediator columnist Robert A. Creo returns to IDN to discuss the Master Mediator Institute, which he co-founded in 2008. The Institute focuses on the art and science of mediation, negotiation and facilitated decision making. Also joining IDN host Michael McIlwrath is MMI Director and co-founder Monique McKay, who points out that MMI is creating a community of mediators, counsel, executives and scientists to help people integrate negotiating decisions - that is, combine the rational basis of bargaining strategies and choices with the pull of the underlying emotional component, individual values and other subjective factors which are often unacknowledged or even ignored in business settings. First of two parts.

IDN host Michael McIlwrath speaks with Nicholas Henchie, a partner in the London office of Mayer Brown. They analyze the benefits and the needs for limited processes, including, at the end, the new CPR Institute global accelerated rules.

"Moving beyond the Salami" is just one of a big group of negotiating techniques discussed this week with Christian Duve, a partner in Freshfields Bruckinger Deringer in Frankfurt, Germany. These negotiations strive for agreement, of course, but they're also all about competition.

Why is U.S. justice so scary for the rest of the world? Why do European general counsel fear U.S. courts? It's not just the juries and the punitive damages, according to Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr., a legendary University of Pennsylvania Law School scholar and ethicist, who suggests that the problems with the U.S. court system are even deeper and more complex than its obvious features. "The [U.S.] civil law remedy of damages is regarded as a kind of offset or compensation adjustment," says Hazard, for regulatory failure, and the lack of a social safety net.

The view on apologies from a veteran mediator: Robert A. Creo, a longtime friend of the CPR Institute, visits International Dispute Negotiation host Michael McIlwrath in Florence, Italy, to discuss why saying you are sorry can bring about a positive resolution.

Luca Radicati di Brozolo, a partner focusing on arbitration at the Bonelli Erede Pappalardo law firm in Milan, and Andrea Bernava, a litigation partner in the Chiomenti law firm's Rome and Milan offices, set out the current state of mediation and arbitration practices in Italy.

The parties are ready to go, having agreed to arbitration, and some basics, in last week's episode. This week brings the real negotiation: How long is this arbitration going to take?

In this week's episode, the first of two parts, Roberto Calabresi, a Florence, Italy, litigator, returns to IDN to play the role of a claimant in a hypothetical contractual dispute that has gone to arbitration.

This week, IDN host Mike McIlwrath opens up about one of his employer's mediations. He does much more than pull back the curtains on General Electric Co.'s ADR processes and procedures in a personal injury case: He gathers the mediator, well-known U.K. neutral Tony Allen, and the employee, Gavin Slessor, of Scotland, who lost his right arm and leg in a workplace accident. Hear what Slesser did to get to mediation, and make it work, as well as why GE decided to mediate the case. And find out what happened in the participants' own words, and how they feel about the results.

Here's the finale of a three-part series distilled from Mike's final discussion with arbitration scholar Thomas Walde, who passed away in a household accident last October after these interviews were recorded. The concluding part covers the goal of the get together: Mike and Thomas look at actual arbitrator resumes, and discuss how they evaluate the people they hire. IDN listeners this week will get an insider's view of how sophisticated international arbitration customers view the tribunal members they're about to hire. For more of Mike's reflections on this series, and his work with the late Prof. Walde, visit IDN on Facebook.

This week, IDN host Mike McIlwrath returns to one of his favorite subjects, gathering information when choosing a neutral. It's the second of a three-part series distilled from Mike's final discussion with arbitration scholar Thomas Walde, who passed away in a household accident last October a couple of weeks after these interviews were recorded. It's a provocative IDN, as the talk turns to the qualification of arbitrators, and how sex and age figure into parties' hiring assessments.

This week, more from IDN host Mike McIlwrath's conversation with Thomas Walde from last October, shortly before the arbitration scholar and theorist died in an accident. In IDN 47, which debuted on Oct. 24, less than two weeks after his untimely death, Walde discussed arbitration advocacy. Next week, Walde on what parties want in an arbitrator, and why.

International Dispute Negotiation host Michael McIlwrath asks how long should it take to complete an arbitration. In-house attorneys, law-firm veterans, academics, and business executives all have expectations about arbitration. This week, Mike provides a compilation of answers about those expectations.

That's the gist of the question that International Mediation Institute head, Michael Leathes, asks International Dispute Negotiation host Mike McIlwrath, to open Part II of their conversation on credentialing mediators with IMI.

This week's IDN podcast provides details on a Netherlands-based initiative targeted at improving and expanding mediation use worldwide. Michael Leathes, who heads the International Mediation Institute, a nonprofit based in the Hague, Netherlands, discusses in Part I of a two-part interview how his initiative accredit international mediators.

International arbitration isn't working, according to Italian lawyer Daniele Menegatti, and while mediation could produce a "workable" solution under certain conditions, his one experience wasn't successful.

In this week's International Dispute Negotiation podcast, the American Arbitration Association's general counsel, Eric Tuchmann, returns for his second visit, analyzing the Congressional push to ban mandatory consumer, employment and franchise arbitration. Initiatives to change arbitration practice were reintroduced last week. IDN host Mike McIlwrath, of GE Oil & Gas in Florence, Italy, sat down with Eric before the bills were reintroduced, and brings listeners up to date. Eric presciently predicts that certain language in the Arbitration Fairness Act won't survive - and indeed, one provision he found troubling in the earlier version of the bill was stricken in the new version that debuted last week. Find out what that change was, and what else may be altered before the Arbitration Fairness Act of 2009 comes up for votes.

How do you get multiple, ethnically diverse parties to forge an agreement on a public land use project? And then keep quiet while government officials decide what to do about it? Australian mediator Joanna Kalowski returns for her second International Dispute Negotiation podcast visit to describe how a big zoning project put double-digit numbers of community interest groups at a mediation table to hammer out "principles" for a government decision. Jo discusses what happened, and how the efforts apply in a variety of public mediation and consensus building situations.

This week, International Dispute Negotiation host Michael McIlwrath presents Part II of his interview with Christian P. Alberti, a New York-based solutions manager at the International Centre for Dispute Resolution, the American Arbitration Association's international division. In Part I last week, Alberti explained how the AAA sends cases to the ICDR. He described how matters are initiated and processed, as well as ICDR arbitrator selection. This week, Mike draws a contrast between the ICDR's methods and those of the Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce, which were examined in IDN Episodes 34 and 35 last July. Mike and his guest in this week's conclusion analyze the role played by case managers during the arbitration, and after the award is issued.

Did you ever wonder what your ADR administrator is doing behind the scenes with your arbitration case? Have you ever wondered how your name really got in front the parties as a potential member of an arbitration panel? You came to the right place. In his new, just-posted CPR podcast, International Dispute Negotiation host Michael McIlwrath sits down to dissect the case manager's role with Christian P. Alberti, a New York-based solutions manager at the International Center for Dispute Resolution, the American Arbitration Association's international division, goes into deep detail about the nonprofit company's case management processes.

More on representing clients in mediation from a top partner at this year's winner of the 2008 CPR Law Firm Award for Excellence in ADR. This week, host Mike McIlwrath presents Part 2 of his conversation with Alex Oddy, a partner who focuses on ADR at the law firm of Herbert Smith in London.Last week, Oddy presented the first four of his eight tips for effective mediation advocacy. This week, Oddy concludes with four more pointers on how parties can optimize their interaction with each other, and the mediator, once the process is underway--and even after it is concluded.

Effective client representation in mediation is more than being a good spoken advocate, explains Alexander Oddy, partner in London-based Herbert Smith, which last night won the CPR Law Firm Award for Excellence in ADR. Oddy explains that you also need to be a good written advocate, a good procedural advocate, and even a good psychological advocate in the mediation room in order to best support your client. And you need to be a good advocacy coach, too, so you can help your client take charge. In the first of two parts, Alex provides four of eight mediation advocacy tips to International Dispute Negotiation host Mike McIlwrath. The second half of the tips will be available in Part II, next Friday, Jan. 23.

Mediator Jenny Beer, who in September told IDN podcast listeners in her first visit that disputes indeed are valuable, returns to discuss international mediation. Flexibility is needed for cross-cultural mediation, she explains. Beer, who co-authored the cross-discipline guide, "The Mediator's Handbook," in 1982, tells host Mike McIlwrath that negotiators "need a mindset - not a list."

Our need to develop fairness and justice runs deep. How deep? About 40,000 human developmental years deep. In this week's podcast, Ian Tattersall, curator in the Department of Anthropology at New York's American Museum of Natural History, and an expert in interpreting human paleontology to the public, discusses how Cro-Magnon creativity and culture produced the beginnings of modern dispute resolution.

Arbitrators are sued for anything and everything, according to first-time International Dispute Negotiation guest Eric P. Tuchmann, the American Arbitration Association's general counsel in New York. Join Tuchmann and IDN host Mike McIlwrath for a discussion on liability claims against arbitration tribunals and providers. The analysis begins with a New Jersey parking lot brawl between an arbitration attorney-advocate, and an opposing party--a case that had the AAA defending its actions in a state appellate court.

Ben's Back! One of the nation’s top law firm ADR practitioners, Bennett G. Picker, of Philadelphia's Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young, returns to talk about what it takes to be a great mediator. The discussion is relevant to managing international disputes, explains host Mike McIlwrath, because it is the same information parties need for choosing a great mediator in the course of their dispute management. Find out the three things you need to know about what makes a great mediator in this week's IDN.

Mercedes Tarrazon, a veteran arbitrator and mediator in Barcelona, provides a platform for making parties and their attorneys more comfortable with mediation, arbitration, and other hybrid processes that keep people and companies out of litigation. Host Mike McIlwrath interviews Tarrazon about her effective technique for helping parties obtain satisfactory outcomes from their arbitrations--even well before the award stage. Tarrazon explains a practice that she has adapted in a variety of commercial conflict resolution settings around the world.