Streamlining Disputes:  The Mediator as Case Manager

Presented by, John Lande and Peter Benner

in collaboration with the International and Commercial Sections of the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR).

Streamlining Disputes: The Mediator as Case Manager from Bryan J Hanson on Vimeo.

Session Description:

Although many lawyers and mediators think about using mediators only toward the end of a case, after discovery and motions, to finally resolve it, mediators can be very helpful at all stages of litigation –even before suit is filed.

This session will describe the “prison of fear” that leads lawyers and their clients to procrastinate about negotiation – and how they can escape from this prison to start negotiating, both as to process and resolution, at the earliest appropriate time.

Then it will describe a wide range of services that mediators can provide throughout a case to help parties and lawyers reach a satisfactory, cost-effective conclusion.

Presenter Bio:

John Lande is the Isidor Loeb Professor Emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Law and former director of its LLM Program in Dispute Resolution.  He received his J.D. from Hastings College of Law and Ph.D in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  He began mediating in 1982 in California.  His work focuses on various aspects of dispute system design, including publications analyzing how lawyering and mediation practices transform each other, business lawyers’ and executives’ opinions about litigation and ADR, designing court-connected mediation programs, improving the quality of mediation practice, the “vanishing trial,” and planned early dispute resolution.  The ABA recently published the second edition of his book, Lawyering with Planned Early Negotiation: How You Can Get Good Results for Clients and Make Money.  His website, where you can download his publications, is http://www.law.missouri.edu/lande/.

Peter Benner has an independent dispute resolution practice as arbitrator, mediator and resolution consultant, concentrating in the business and healthcare areas. He practiced law at the Hartford, Connecticut firm of Shipman & Goodwin, LLP field for 33 years, through 2009.  He serves on the Commercial and the Healthcare Panels of the American Arbitration Association and the Resolvers Panel of the American Health Lawyers Association.  He speaks and publishes regularly on conflict resolution issues and teaches Healthcare Dispute Resolution as an adjunct professor at the Quinnipiac University School of Law. He is former Chair of the Connecticut Bar Association Alternative Dispute Resolution Section and for Chair for six years of the Grievance Committee of the US District Court for the District of Connecticut.  He can be reached at peter@pwbresolve.com and his website is www.pwbresolve.com.