Journal Archives

Volume 9 – 2016

This 9TH  issue of the Journal is dedicated to the memory of Mel Rubin – an esteemed Fellow and former President of the American College of Civil Trial Mediators, a productive and energetic member of our Editorial Board, and a man with the gift of becoming a good friend to everyone he met. Our tribute to Mel, drawn from the talents of Editorial Board Member John Salmon and joined with supporting comments from Fellows of the College, is but a small token of the admiration and affection we all held for him.
            Leading off the substantive articles for this issue is an important major work by ACCTM Fellow John Barkett who explores a wide range of ethical issues encountered by lawyers and mediators while navigating settlement negotiations. In his piece entitled, Ethics in ADR – A Sampling of Issues, Mr. Barkett draws on an array of national and local ethical rules for attorneys and dispute resolution professionals to resolve practice dilemmas we all share at one time or another. Mr. Barkett has produced the most comprehensive and through study on our ethical standards yet published by this Journal. We are proud to present it in this ninth issue.
            Next up, Wisconsin Law School graduate, Danielle Scott takes on the national media for arguably unfair and biased treatment of the Community Relations Service of the Department of Justice. As described in her article, All Opinions Matter: Breaking Down Assumptions about the Community Relations Service, CRS was created under Title X of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to provide agents charged with facilitating resolution of community based disputes involving discriminatory practices creating racial, gender bias, or ethnicity tensions. Due to the confidential nature of their mediation activities, however, the opportunities for media speculation as to their powers, funding, and purpose abound – much of it resulting in unkind and erroneous comment. Ms. Scott admirably sets the record straight in an informative and well written article.
            Cory Baker, a recent Pepperdine University Law School graduate, next provides us with a compelling argument for using mediation processes to resolve multi-party land use disputes. Given the wide variety of stakeholders in most land use plans, it seems clear that facilitating a reconciliation a full range of interests and concerns is superior to the adjudicating positional debates of a few. In his piece entitled, Repaving the Legal System – Stepping Away from the Courts and Moving Toward Mediation to Solve Land Use Disputes, Mr. Baker provides us through a succinct foundation for demonstrating that point.
            Finally, we conclude this issue with a pragmatic, step by step analysis entitled, Planning, Organizing, Formatting and Executing The Mediation of Complex Multi-Party, Multi-Issue Disputes. Presented as a working guide for mediators and trial attorneys involved in these sorts of lawsuits, the article begins with suggestions for the mediator’s initial intake and pre-mediation planning procedures, walks us through a mediation session agenda, defines issue refinement and negotiation pathway processes, and concludes with steps necessary to document the deal.  To those of you facing the daunting prospect of to many issues among to many disputants, this may prove to be a helpful guide.
            We hope you enjoy this issue of the Journal.
Lawrence M. Watson Jr., Editor
For the Editorial Board

 TRIBUTE TO MELVIN RUBIN
Founding Fellow, Past-President,
and Distinguished Fellow
Coral Gables, FL

 Ethics In ADR – A Sampling of Issues
      JOHN M. BARKETT, ESQ.
Fellow, Miami, FL

Mr. Barkett is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame (B.A. Government, 1972, summa cum laude) and the Yale Law School (J.D. 1975) and served as a law clerk to the Honorable David W. Dyer on the old Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. Barkett is a Fellow of both the American College of Civil Trial Mediators and the College of Commercial Arbitrators and is a Member of the London Court of International Arbitration and the International Council on Commercial Arbitration. Mr. Barkett also teaches as an adjunct professor at the University of Miami School of Law. In October 2017, Mr. Barkett will complete a six year term on the Advisory Committee for Civil Rules of the Federal Judicial Conference. Beginning in August 2016, he will serve a three-year term as a member of the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility, having previously served for one-year as a member of this Committee.

 

 All Opinions Matter – Breaking Down Assumptions About the Community Relations Service
      DANIELLE SCOTT, Student
University of Wisconsin Law School
Madison, WI

Danielle Scott is a recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School, where she was a member of the Wisconsin Law Review and Treasurer of the Black Law Students Association.  During her 2L year, Ms. Scott mediated a variety of cases in the Dane County and Walworth County Small Claims Courts including landlord-tenant, contract, and property damage cases as part of Wisconsin Law’s Mediation Clinic.  In the fall, Ms. Scott will begin work as an Associate in the Madison office of the law firm of Perkins Coie LLP, where she will practice patent litigation. She earned her B.A. in American Studies from Cornell University.

 Repaving the Legal System – Stepping Away From the Courts and Moving Towards Mediation To Solve Land Use Disputes
CORY BAKER, Student
Pepperdine University
Malibu, CA

Cory Baker is a 2016 graduate from Pepperdine University School of Law. He is interested in pursuing a career in Real Estate, Land Use and Environmental Law, but ultimately an opportunity to develop and exercise skills related to real estate transactions, from a both legal and entrepreneurial perspectives. He has acquired extensive practice in Real Estate and Securities Law as associate in-house counsel for Realty Mogul, a real estate investment platform. Currently, Cory served as a volunteer Mediator through the Center for Conflict Resolution, and strives to educate and provide alternative dispute resolution services to the Los Angeles County Small Claims Courts. In addition, Cory was the Editor-in- Chief of the Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship Camp; the Law; one of Pepperdine’s specialty Journals.

 Planning, Organizing, Formatting and Executing the Mediation of a Complex, Multi-Party, Multi-Issue Lawsuit
LAWRENCE M. WATSON, JR., ESQ.
Fellow Emeritus
Upchurch Watson White & Max P.A.
Maitland, FL

Lawrence M. “Larry” Watson is a founding partner of the mediation firm of Upchurch, Watson, White & Max which now features a panel of over thirty mediators operating from offices in Florida and Alabama. Mr. Watson’s practice in Orlando, Florida focuses on complex, multi-party commercial disputes including construction claims, insurance and reinsurance disputes, business dissolutions, intellectual property and environmental issues. A former Chairman of the Florida Bar Trial Lawyers Section, and longstanding member of the ABA Section Of Litigation leadership, Mr. Watson was appointed by the Florida Supreme Court to its Standing Committee on Mediation and Arbitration Rules (later to become the Court’s Standing Committee on ADR Rules and Policy) where he served as chair and a member for twenty five years. In 2000, the Florida Academy of Professional Mediators granted him their Award of Merit for Outstanding Contribution to Mediation, in 2005 he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the American College of Civil Trial Mediators, and in 2014 he was awarded The Sharon Press Excellence in ADR Award by the Supreme Court of Florida. Mr. Watson is an Emeritus Fellow of the American College of Civil Trial Mediators, and currently serves as Editor of ACCTM’s American Journal of Mediation.