Mediation On-Line A Newsletter from ADR Resources http://adrr.com/adr9/033.htm Volume 3, No. 10. From: Ethesis@AOL.Com (Ethesis) To: SMarsh@adrr.com Subscribe

Greetings:

It has been a very busy month.  I'm glad to be able to send out a newsletter this month and to be able to announce an article by Roz Zinner at http://adrr.com/adr4/joint.htm titled Joint Physical Custody: Smart Solution or Problematic Plan?

Also, by permission, I have a copy of one of Dr. Elgin's newsletters on the site.  http://adrr.com/arb01/quote1.htm is the link.  It is the last of the on-line materials associated with my health care dispute resolution class I taught last term.  Those, and other class outlines are at http://adrr.com/arb01/.

I am seriously expecting that I will go back to a bi-monthly newsletter for a while, until I have more free time, but look forward to the input and help of each subscriber.

Interesting new Mediation & ADR web sites

I remain interested in getting referrals to new or important ADR sites.  Please send me the url rather than embedded links so that I can look at the address before having to visit it.  Thanks.

FMCS's newest dispute resolution tool: Technology Assisted Group Solutions System (TAGS System) is now available on-line at http://tags.fmcs.gov.  It is a special project by Michael J Wolf, Commissioner, Special Assistant to the Director at mwolf@fmcs.gov, and well worth a visit. Michael is out of the San Antonio office at Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, 10500 Hwy. 281 North, Suite 115, San Antonio TX 78216-3938.

Also of worthwhile interest is http://steelhector.com/practice_areas/admiralty/mmac.htm, an arbitration center serving the maritime industry in Miami.  It is an excellent example of the focused specialization that I have been trying to explain to a number of students interested in exploring arbitration.  Nicely done and worth a visit.  The center is run by a firm headquartered in Miami but with offices in London, Brazil, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic, e-mail bam@steelhector.com.  I note the foriegn offices for Spanish language individuals interested in an American connection.

I really like Wayne State's new site at http://www.mtds.wayne.edu/campus.htm which contains a collection of Campus Mediation Center resources.  A very large, very comprehensive collection, including numerous links.

Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University has a web site at http://www.cardozo.yu.edu/kukin/index.html. Currently just a brochure, but I expect it to grow.  Cardozo is one of the top ten ADR Law Schools in the United States.

University of Missouri (Columbia Law School) is number one, but they have an LLM program in dispute resolution with three endowed chairs that was founded by Bobby Macadoo.  A number one pick is a pretty obvious choice. http://www.law.missouri.edu/csdr/ for their web site.

At http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/example/fish7421.htm there are some very nice framing materials, suitable for printing out and using during a mediation in the right circumstances.

http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/alliance is a nicely growing site at Cornell in support of higher education in the ADR field. Cornell has a graduate program that competes with ICAR and Syracuse in history and connections (though the actual program for graduate students, rather than practicioners, is only a few years old).  They are reworking their main web site, a project that should be completed in the next few months.  Until then, visit both the main site and the alliance site and send them suggestions for improvement.

www.mediate-divorce.com is another new, specialized site.  Nicely targeted towards a growing niche.  An article by the author of the site is on my site, with permission at Joint Custody: Smart Solution or Modern Mess http://adrr.com/adr4/joint.htm.

http://usuarios.arnet.com.ar/abrjos/ is the Spanish language site for the group in Argentina known as Equipo Interdisciplinario Capacitador en Mediación Escolar - EICaME.

Essay/Comment/Books/Periodicals

I can now recommend the book _Mediation in the Campus Community: Designing and Managing Effective Programs _ by William C. Warters.  My only problem with the Wayne State web site or the book is that I ordered a copy of Ready-Set-Go by e-mail and after several weeks have heard nothing back.  Still, the site is wonderfull and the book is very, very good if you are interested in, or in the process of, setting up a mediation center on a campus.  Probably the best current book available. [Link to book]

_Mediation in International Conflicts_ by Nadine S. Karsch is the first book on the topic in German.  For more informationon the book, contact her at nadine.karsch@stud.lrz-muenchen.de (Nadine Karsch) or in Munich.

On Employment and Professional Organizations

SPIDR's merger continues.  I truly hope it is a revitalizing affair.  I am also waiting on an article about one student's experience with her graduate dispute resolution program's placement efforts and her job search.

Educational Programs:

I am hoping that next year that U.S. News & World Report will have a "top 10" for ADR programs rather than a top 10 law schools in ADR.  It would be nice to see a recognition that all ADR is not contained within law schools.

I am also pleased that SMU (Southern Methodist University) continues to focus on getting the best available instructors rather than giving in the faculty's desire for fuller teaching loads.  As a group we agree that it is better to bring in Folger to teach transformative mediation than to do it ourselves, to have our religious facilitation class taught by a visiting professor from the Mennonite group, etc., but (isn't there always a but), individually we would all like to teach more.

With ten adjunct faculty and a number of visiting professors, we have one of the broadest teaching bases I have seen, and a real committment to the couple hundred graduate students enrolled in the program.  Further, our students are generally recruited from the ranks of employed professionals who are seeking additional skills and tools, not from the ranks of undergraduates who are seeking a primary profession (e.g. my health care dispute resolution class included an M.D., an ICU nurse who sets up ICUs, a senior hospital administrator, the assistant general counsel from a fortune 100 company and a number of similar people).  That makes a real difference in what we offer students, and perhaps taints my thoughts on being honest, and what honesty means.  Honesty (as I define it) is painless for our program, so it may not be fair of me to editorialize on the subject or to define it for others (which is why I have not tried to do that yet).

I do have a brief essay for students considering my classes.  See http://adrr.com/arb01/whata1.htm for the one I did for the arbitration class I taught.

News

A plan by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service to credential mediators and maintain a list of approved neutrals for use by government agencies is generating controversy among practitioners who say the move may exceed the agency's authority and stifle competition.  The real issue is that the FMCS plan to credential mediators in four specialties is likely to create the first national credentialling plan by default.  Those that qualify for credentialling expect to have significant marketing benefits as a result.  Those who do not, fear that it will mean a loss of opportunities.  For more on this breaking story, visit ADR World on the web.

The official press release follows:

" -- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Gary Hattal (202) 606-8100
Tuesday, July 18, 2000
e-mail: publicinformation@fmcs.gov

FMCS Announces Mediator Credentialing Program

The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) today announced a new initiative to credential outside private and public sector mediators in four specific dispute resolution disciplines: labor, employment, commercial, and regulatory negotiations.

FMCS Director Richard Barnes said, “It is in the public interest to establish standards of training, ethics, and practice for our profession.” According to Barnes, “Credentialing distinguishes persons who meet requisite standards from those who do not; however, credentialing does not restrict persons from the activity to the extent that licensure and certification do.Credentialing relies upon the principles of free market choice for consumers of the service.”

Barnes continued, “This initiative will permit us to develop a set of voluntary standards for training, ethics, and competent practice. Additionally, consumers will have a grievance mechanism to seek redress for performance that does not meet these standards.”

FMCS will be joined in this initiative by several academic institutions and professional groups. Representatives of the W. J. Usery Center at Georgia State University, Cornell University, the Alliance for Education in Dispute Resolution, the Public Administration Forum, among others, are currently developing core competencies and experience levels for each tier and discipline to be credentialed. These core competencies include the following: negotiation skills, mediation skills, facilitation, and multi-party conflict management.

The qualification of mediators, by experience and discipline, along with their continuing education and ethics training, will be available to the public online in October of this year.

For more information, interested individuals should contact FMCS Institute Director Gary Hattal at (202) 606-8100 or e-mail at: ghattal@fmcs.gov. --"

Current Issues

The credentialling issue is picking up steam again, and October should be an important month when the FMCS releases its program.  Combined with the increasing push for honesty in marketing mediation training and graduate dispute resolution programs, and there is a significant pressure on the profession.

Submissions to adrr.com

As always, I am interested in any submissions or articles anyone would like to have posted on the web -- and I am glad to be able to point them out in this newsletter.  I prefer to post material as you have written it, with no editorial changes by myself.

With my best regards, I remain,

Sincerely yours,

Stephen Marsh
http://adrr.com/adr9/034.htm
Additional material is included in the on-line version.
If you are curious where the term/name Ethesis comes
from, visit http://adrr.com/living/ethesis.htm

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Post Script (the "extra" material for the on-line version).

Scientists have shown that the moon is moving away at a tiny, although measurable distance from the earth every year.

If you do the math, you can calculate that 85 million years ago the moon was orbiting the earth at a distance of about 35 feet from the earth's surface.

This would explain the death of the dinosaurs. The tallest ones, anyway.

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