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Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution

Advanced Mediation Skills: Techniques & Strategies

September 24-26, 2009 - Honolulu, Hawaii

Faculty: Nina Meierding, Bruce Edwards, and Riki Amano

Co-sponsored with Dispute Prevention and Resolution, Inc.


What you will learn:

  • Customizing Your Convening Process and Opening Statement - how the beginning impacts the end
  • Rapport and Trust Building Strategies - maximizing the potential for settlement in mediation
  • Communication Across Cultures - working with different processing styles (monochronic and polychronic), direct and indirect speakers (high and low context), different levels of risk taking (high and low uncertainty avoidance), and different attitudes towards the law and equity (particularist and universalist)
  • Strategic Questioning - moving beyond information gathering and utilize questions for moderating tempo, power balancing and creating empathy
  • Diagnosing Resistance and Moving Beyond Impasse - assessing the specific causes of obstacles to settlement and choosing the appropriate intervention to move beyond the impasse
  • Resolution v. the Deal - exploring the intricacies of the apology in mediation, including the types of apology, the different components(timing, sincerity, delivery), what types of apologies work, and what types of apologies will backfire, creating true resolution
  • Specialized Mediation - our last half day will offer participants a choice of either family mediation or general civil litigaged cases

Faculty

Nina Meierding is a national leader in the field of conflict resolution and has been providing training and mediation services for over 23 years. She is a former president of the Academy of Family Mediators and served on the board of directors of the Association for Conflict Resolution and many other organizations. She is an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University, Southern Methodist University, and Lipscomb University. She was the director and senior mediator at the Mediation Center for Family Law in Ventura, California, from 1985 to 2007 where she mediated over 4,000 disputes. She is a consultant for the Wisconsin Special Education Mediation System (WSEMS). Meierding has trained thousands of individuals in businesses, courts, school districts, governmental agencies, medical centers, corporations, and universities throughout the United States and abroad.

Judge Riki May Amano (Ret.) served in the Third Circuit Court, State of Hawaii, from February 1992 until her retirement in April 2003. During her judicial career Judge Amano presided over personal injury, negligence, medical malpractice, contract, employment, probate, landlord/tenant, small claims, family, and criminal non-jury and jury trials. For nine years Judge Amano was the Court Annexed Arbitration Programs' arbitration judge. She has been on a neutral panel with Dispute Prevention and Resolution since her retirement in 2003, performing private mediation, arbitration, facilitation, and neutral services. Judge Amano is an LL.M. candidate at the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, Pepperdine University School of Law.

Bruce Edwards is one of JAMS/Endispute's most experienced attorney mediators. He has extensive expertise in handling complex, multiparty cases with emphasis on construction, business, environmental, and traumatic personal injury matters. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of California, Davis and his law degree from Hastings College of Law. Edwards co-founded the Bates Edwards Group in 1991 (which merged with JAMS/Endispute in 1994) after a highly successful career as a litigation partner with the San Francisco office of Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold. He has mediated over 4,000 disputes in 42 states since 1986. Edwards teaches advanced mediation courses in the United States and western Europe.

For more information call Lori Rushford at 310.506.6342 or e-mail

MCLE

Approved for 21 hours of California MCLE Credit (including one hour of Legal Ethics)

Location and Program Times

University of Hawaii at Manoa
William S. Richardson School of Law
Moot Courtroom
2515 Dole Street
Honolulu, HI 96822

Thursday, September 24 - 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Friday, September 25 - 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Saturday, September 26 - 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

 

Cost and Registration

Registration fee for the program is $1,295. There is $100 discount for payments received by August 13, 2009 ($1,195). Governmental and nonprofit rate is $895. Materials, continental breakfast and lunch included. Please note there is a $400 non-refundable fee when canceling. The amount of $400 can be used towards a future Straus training program with no transfer fee.

I will be sending a check for:
Please note that if a check refund is needed, participants must submit a W-9 form to the University.

Please make check payable to Pepperdine University and send to:

Lori Rushford
Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution
24255 Pacific Coast Highway
Malibu, CA 90263

Preffered Method of Payment
Please contact me for credit card information
(Visa and MasterCard only) in the amount of:

PLEASE NOTE: When canceling, we require 48 hours notice prior to the program start date or a $50 charge will be forfeited from registration fee.

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