Last week there was a report on NPR about the job prospects for recent law school graduates. It said that “at some schools, less than a third of their graduating class were obtaining long-term, full-time legal jobs” and that “since 2009, the median starting salary in private practice has fallen 35 percent” (1).

That report focused on lawyers, but what…

After my last blog on empathy I reflected on some of my other relationships and realized I have a friend I know so well that in most cases I can correctly tell what she’s thinking and how she’s feeling. So if missing empathy is one’s inability to determine another individual's feelings – does that mean that I’m super empathetic? Or is there more to it?

Experts on the topic, such as Paul Ekman (the author of “Telling Lies” and the inspiration behind the TV series…

Over the last few months I’ve found myself in conflict with a dear friend over and over again due to our inability to correctly recognize and predict each other’s emotional responses. But just as a lack of empathy can cause conflicts, empathy can be an important tool. Mauricio Hernández Sarti finds that

“empathy is one of the most powerful processes that allows forgiveness and understanding … to resolve conflicts” (…

Is ADR a field? Many of us may take the answer to this question for granted. But are we mediation-centric as we go through life? And what about ADR being “in the shadow of the law”? During the Keystone Conference in October 2010 the question of whether or not ADR is a field was discussed – first in form of a question and then in the form of two different answers. I thought those were good pointers for self-reflection…

First, Carrie Menkel-Meadow asks "Are We a…

Some of the news items in recent weeks made me think of something I had read about acceptance (“Getting Together – Building Relationships As We Negotiate” by Fisher and Brown, 1988). These days we talk much about “tolerance”, but there seems to be a fine difference. Acceptance comes first: First we need to recognize the other party, only then can there be a question of how we deal with them.

Why does this need to be pointed out? Well, when we are in a conflict…