Conflict Practitioner

Re-thinking self-determination in mediation

This article was published by Andrew B. Mamo in the 2023 issue of the Mississippi Law Journal. It’s LONG – 64 pages – so I’m going to give you an overview of the main points and some questions to think about. In this article, Mamo questions what self-determination means and why it is considered important […]

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CRITICAL REFLECTION: Ethical marketing of conflict resolution services

There is very little written directly about marketing ethics in the field of conflict resolution.  A notable exception is a paper written by Rachael Field and Neal Wood in 2005 about marketing mediation ethically.  They caution that “at its present stage of development in Australia, there continues to be a significant level of rhetoric associated

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Motivating people to engage in conflict resolution services

When we look at how people typically promote conflict-related services like mediation, the services are often presented as a better option than other alternatives. In fact, this thinking is even found in the name “alternative dispute resolution”. However, psychological research shows that using scare tactics to try to motivate someone to do something tends not

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Are frameworks useful to help understand complex conflict contexts?

Claire Holland and Judith Rafferty, conflict management specialists, academics, researchers and trainers with the Conflict Management Academy (CMA), say YES! According to Judith and Claire, frameworks are a useful way to break down and look at complicated conflict situations in a way that can bring greater awareness, understanding, and clarity to the situation. It’s not

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Transformative mediation – separating the myth from the reality

Many mediators know about transformative mediation, but in my experience, not many mediators really understand it. I was certified as a transformative mediator in 2010 (Baruch Bush was my assessor) and was approved to teach transformative mediation by the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation (ISCT) a few years later. Since then, I have

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CRITICAL REFLECTION: No settlement, no fee in mediation?

In the past couple of weeks, I have come across a few different mediators in Australia and other countries who have offered, or are currently offering, some version of a contingency fee for their mediation services. This got my attention, and I decided to explore the phenomenon in more detail.  I’ve done some research, and

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