1A: Every Unhappy Family Business Is Unhappy In Its Own Way

Format: Panel/Lecture  

Presenters: Matthew D. Donovan, Hon. Elizabeth Hazlitt Emerson, Peter Mahler

Materials: Click Here

NY CLE Credit: 1.5 Skills. This program provides transitional/non-transitional credit.  

True finality is difficult to come by when resolving family-owned business disputes, particularly when the dispute has escalated to the point of litigation.  Litigation translates into court decisions.  And with court decisions, there are “winners” and “losers” – or at least perceived winners and losers – which only exacerbates the already dysfunctional family dynamic.  Thus, an alternative resolution of a family-owned business dispute may offer a closer approximation of finality than litigation. 

In a more typical closely-held business dispute, the parties may find a way to continue doing business together or, as often occurs, go their separate ways never to see each other again.  This is virtually impossible when the parties are family members.  In addition to their obligations to the business, the principals in a family-owned business have co-existing obligations to the family.  Thus, when attempting to resolve or preempt a family-owned business dispute, advocates and adjudicators alike must balance their efforts to protect the parties’ rights and interests in the business with efforts to “keep the peace” within the family.  This, in turn, requires approaching the dispute with a broader perspective, taking into account certain emotional, cultural, and other relational factors that can inform and even drive the dispute.

1B. Mediating Art Law Disputes: Questions of Authenticity, Attribution and Ownership

Format: Panel/Lecture

Moderator: Hon. Stephen Crane (Ret.) JAMS 

Panelists: Judith A. Bresler, John R. Cahill, Darlene Fairman, Betty Krulik

Materials: Click Here 

NY CLE: 1.5 Professional Practice. This program provides transitional/non-transitional credit. 

Resolving disputes related to the authentication, attribution and ownership of an art work is a complex affair, particularly in modern times when sophisticated forgeries flood the market.  The problem is so severe that Authentication Boards from the artists’ foundations of Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollack and Jean-Michel Basquiat, who serve the function of stabilizing the market by authenticating their artists’ works, have all recently ceased their authentication work due to current litigation and/or the fear of future litigation against their authentication efforts.  Is the art world in crisis?  How are disputes related to the current challenges of authenticity, attribution and ownership of art works being resolved?  Join Hon. Hon. Stephen G. Crane (Ret.) of JAMS and a panel of art law and art industry experts for a discussion of these important issues.

1C: Adult Conflict in Private Education: An Undeveloped Area for Practitioners

Format: Interactive Presentation

Presenter: Richard Barbieri

Materials: Click Here

Although many schools offer peer mediation programs, few train adult staff in conflict resolution.  They are ill-prepared for both internal and external conflict because of their unique cultural norms, and the different approaches to conflict often espoused by their constituencies, whether parents or community groups.  The speakers will share their extensive knowledge of this distinctive subculture, and discuss prospects for intervening before disputes lead to both litigation and adverse publicity.

1D: The Importance of Culture in Conflict Resolution: Scenarios in Commercial Mediation, Community Engagement and International Disputes

Format: Panel/Lecture

Presenters: Aldo Civico, Laurence Shore, Jeff Thompson

Moderator: Margaret Shaw

Materials: Click Here

NY CLE: 1.5 Professional Practice. This program provides transitional/non-transitional credit. 

Culture has a multitude of meanings when considering the broad spectrum of conflict resolution. With millions of dollars often at stake in cross-border commercial mediations, understanding the local culture can potentially make or break the prospects for a settlement. Still, culture cannot be narrowly defined as nationality. Domestic and international communities exhibit their own culture that must be acknowledged when resolving disputes. As methods of transportation and communication continue to improve putting us in more frequent contact with those of differing cultural orientations, and as our interdependence with one another living together on this planet becomes more profound, it is critical we understand and manage our relationships with increased cultural sensitivity. Please join us for a vibrant discussion on this important topic.

2A: Mediators’ Decision-Making: Becoming Conscious of the Unconscious

Format: Interactive Presentation  

Presenter: Tzofnat Peleg-Baker

Materials: Click Here

Cognitive processing is key for understanding and improving experts’ decision making. What are the implications of cognitive processing on the quality of mediators’ performance? Decision-making has its origins in multiple information-processing systems that operate unconsciously and are heavily dependent on tacit learning. Furthermore, contrary to what most like to believe, there is a growing evidence for assuming that decision-making may be a process managed predominantly by unconscious mental activity.

To illuminate mediators’ decisions, and possible conditions to improve the quality of their performance, we will discuss, among other topics, mediators’ automatic unconscious reactions and their relation to conscious processes with emphasis on intuition, the formation of domain complex schema, and the importance of gaining repetitive conscious self-insight into our adaptive unconscious to support skilled automatic decisions. Constructing environments that cultivate learning processes through continuous conscious accessibility to automatic unconscious processes and outcomes such as reflection is especially critical for overriding the tendency to flawed automatic intuitive judgments, and for attaining mediation goals that traditionally has been neglected such as social-psychological goals. This presentation challenges a prevailing assumption that decision accuracy is impaired by fast decision speed. Accordingly, it addresses the question whether fast automatic decisions could be more skillful and how they could improve rather than focusing on decreasing behavioral automaticity.

2B: Creating New Spaces for Conflict Resolution

Format: Workshop

Presenters: Claudia Maffettone, Deena Ramadan

Materials: Click Here

Can online cross-cultural dialogue really overcome prejudice and shift perspectives? Can the next generation of young people gain indispensable 21st century skills Online? Research at MIT says it is already happening. But what are the challenges and opportunities of online ADR? What are the cross-cultural barriers and fundamental dialogue tools needed to interact with our peers abroad? In the first part of this presentation, we will share details and findings of a decade of virtual exchange programs at Soliya and the impact they have had on young professionals all over the world. We will also highlight partnership, training and engagement opportunities for attendants. In the second part of the presentation, we will offer the possibility to connect with young professionals in the Middle East through Soliya’s online platform and have a facilitated live discussion about the on ground realities in the region. Participants will have the opportunity to immerse themselves in one of our dialogue sessions and observe our facilitators in action. If you have been following events in Egypt this will be a unique opportunity to engage directly with young activists on the ground. This presentation will conclude with a debriefing session and Q&A round.

2C: A Career in ADR: Forging Your Own Path

Format: Interactive Presentation  

Presenters: Harold Coleman, Jr., Tracey Frisch, Chris Vermillion, Mara A. Weinstein

Materials: Click Here

NY CLE: 1.5 Professional Practice. This program provides transitional/non-transitional credit. 

Saying that a career in ADR is limited to becoming a full-time neutral in private practice is like saying the only way to have a career in sports is to be the next Kobe Bryant.  So, it’s no wonder that people are often discouraged from pursuing ADR as a first career and instead are told to focus on an area of law or other career to first find their niche and then only after ten plus years of practice, to transition that into a career as a neutral.  Much has been written about the path to becoming a neutral.   However, there has been little focus on careers in ADR beyond service as a neutral in private practice.  This is true even while the number of jobs in the ADR field generally seems to be increasing. 

Both of the presenters were told at one point or another that they should not pursue a career in ADR after graduation, because it was too hard of a field to break into and unlikely we would find gainful employment.  Luckily neither of them took that advice to heart.  We hope to highlight that there is no one right path to a career in ADR. This presentation will focus on our career paths and highlight ways that others can pursue a career in ADR.

2D: Hawking Our Wares in the Marketplace of Values – Selling Quality Not Cost When Promoting Mediation & the Interplay of Global Norms of Justice and Harmony in the Mediation Forum

Format: Interactive Presentation  

Presenter: Simeon Baum

Materials: Click Here

With an eye on international and commercial ADR arenas, we will explore two related phenomena.   First in selling ADR, and mediation in particular, what do we risk by focusing on savings in time and expense?  What should be mediation’s chief selling point?  We will consider whether quality of the process, rather than quantitative measures of time and expense, should be our focus; and we will examine what these qualities and characteristics might be.  Secondly, following our first morning panel on cross-cultural differences and their impact on communication, mutual understanding and decision making, we will spin the cross-cultural focus to see what the Chinese value of harmony can lend to our own understanding of, and to the enhancement of, the mediation process.  Can we re-envision mediation as ideal forum for integrating the norms of justice and harmony?

3A: Mussar and Mediation: Spiritual Practice as a Transformative Aspect of Mediation

Format: Interactive Presentation

Presenter: Gary Shaffer

Materials: Click Here

NY CLE Credit: 1.5 Skills. This program provides transitional/non-transitional credit.  

Mussar is a traditional Jewish spiritual practice that seeks to transform an individual through the study of attributes (middot) such as humility, generosity, gratitude, anger, patience.  It has been described as helping to make the heart understand what the mind knows, and bridges the gap between intellectual understanding and emotional understanding.  A successful mediation often involves assisting parties move from resistance, based on positions supported by a sense of logic and justice, to conciliation, by creating an empathetic understanding of an adversary’s position that in turn allows for accepting how conciliation can create mutual benefits.  As with Mussar practice, a key aspect of a successful mediation is that the process can break down the emotional barriers that are often the greatest obstacle in reaching agreements that require changes in both understanding and behavior.

3B: Veterans Supporting Veterans through Mediation - Developing a Unique Program for Mediating Veteran Issues.

Format: Panel/Lecture  

Presenters: Mark Kleiman, Dre Popow, Peggy Russell

Moderator: Eunice Salton

Materials: Click Here

NY CLE: 1.5 Professional Practice. This program provides transitional/non-transitional credit. 

The re-entry of veterans of the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan may be the singular issue facing the country at this time.  Focusing on the unique experiences of veterans, the workshop will present the aspects of developing a veterans' mediation program.  Mark Kleiman, Esq. and Peggy Russell will discuss the development of the program, including the creation of partnerships with veteran support organizations.  Emphasis will be placed on the creation of the training module for non-veteran mediators, the recruitment of veterans to train as mediators and the development of a round table component to involve families of veterans in the training process.  Mark will offer insights into the unique issues and challenges during the mediation process.  The workshop will include viewing a portion of a training video developed with veterans and a Q & A panel of veterans who helped design and are participating in the program.

3C: 2^nd Annual ACR-GNY Writing Competition Winning Presentations

Format: Panel/Lecture  
Presenters: Dan Berstein, Ariela Garvett, John L. Joy

Moderator: Brian Farkas

Materials: Click Here

Join us as winners of the ACR-GNY Student Writing Competition present their papers. Building upon the popularity of last year’s competition, students throughout North America were invited to submit scholarly work addressing topical issues in the field of conflict resolution. Student submissions were assessed in three categories – Undergraduate, Graduate and Law – to ensure meaningful participation at various levels of scholarship. Papers were blind-judged on 4 criteria (significance of the topic, originality and creativity, quality of analysis, and quality of writing) by experienced professionals in our field. Among the 3 first place prizes awarded is a year membership to ACR-GNY, publication of their work on the ACR-GNY website and $500. Additionally, all first place prize-winners received an invitation to present their paper at the conference.

3D: Innovations in ADR: Finding Areas Ripe for Neutrals

Format: Panel/Lecture  

Presenters: Allison Skinner, Peter S. Vogel

Materials: Click Here

NY CLE: 1.5 Professional Practice. This program provides transitional/non-transitional credit. 

Take a "selfie" of your neutral practice and discover innovative ways to grow your practice.  Information and the law are moving at unprecedented rates.  How will your neutral practice keep up with this pace?  Learn how ADR is expanding into pre-trial practice to navigate the exponential growth of electronic discovery; learn how to spot trending areas of the law that need ADR services and pioneer new space for the use of ADR; explore ways to communicate and market among stakeholders in trending areas; and learn how to be a Millennial's favorite mediator even if you are a Baby Boomer. This program is ideal for a mediator who wants to expand his or her ADR practice.