Fall Conference of the Virginia Mediation Network

Meeting of my "Tribe"

Plenary Sessions Offered by Leaders in the Field

Last week-end, over 85 members of the Virginia Mediation Network (VMN) gathered for its Fall training conference. VMN is the largest state-wide organization of mediation practitioners, trainers, and scholars in Virginia.  

Attendees enjoyed clear fall weather at the Wyndham Virginia Crossings Hotel in Glen Allen, Virginia, a lovely Colonial-style facility on 20-acres of park/golf course just north of Richmond.  

The 2-day event offered three plenary presentations by leaders in the field:

Plenary Session on Careers in the Field

On Saturday morning, Bob Rhudy presented a Plenary Session based on his article, “Engaging Conflict for Fun and Profit: Current and Emerging Career Trends in Conflict Resolution.” His paper on the topic appears here.

During this interactive session, Bob shared the results of his research and engaged participants in a discussion about the emerging career trends in the ADR field. His exhaustive and well-researched study on the options for getting a job as a mediator asks the questions: 

• Are there jobs existing or pending to be filled proportionate to the number of career aspirants? 
• What are the career trends in this field? 
• How can you get such a job and make your way into conflict resolution work? 

Bob is an attorney, mediator, consultant, and trainer, with nearly 40 years of experience in mediation, legal aid, public interest law, legislative advocacy, strategic planning, and nonprofit consulting in the United States and Canada.

Keynote Address About the History of Court-Connected Mediation in Virginia

Professor Robert O’Neil discussed his experiences with ADR.  He first encountered the field as a Harvard Law student interacting with Getting to Yes authors, Roger Fisher and Frank Sander. 

Later, at the request of Virginia Supreme Court Chief Justice, Joseph R. Carico, O'Neil explored ADR as chair of Virginia’s “Future’s Commission,” the first state commission on the future of its judicial system.  

As director of the Ford Foundation’s Difficult Dialogues, he learned more about the application of ADR and other new approaches to meeting campus tensions over issues such as race, religion, sexual orientation, and immigration.

He founded the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression in 1990 and served as the Director until 2011. He is an authority on the First Amendment and is professor of law emeritus at the University of Virginia where he teaches Constitutional Law of Free Speech and the Press and Church and State. He is a Senior Fellow at the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. He became the University of Virginia’s sixth president in 1985, a position he held until 1990.

Stop Fighting and Start Fixing

On Sunday morning, Margaret Kimbrell, Executive Director of the organization, No Labels, gave her presentation entitled: Stop Fighting and Start Fixing: Working Towards Problem Solving in our Government.  She talked about the work of No Labels, a citizens' movement of Democrats, Republicans, and independents dedicated to a new politics of problem solving. 

While coming from different political parties, these legislators and citizens share a simple belief: the politicians in Washington need to find a way to work together again. No Labels is building a voice for Americans, whatever their political ideology, to ensure our leaders in government will work across the aisle to solve problems.

No Labels’ mantra of "Stop Fighting, Start Fixing" should resonate with ADR practitioners, and it is VMN’s hope that Margaret’s presentation will open a dialogue among our members to explore ways that we as conflict resolution professionals can use our skill set to add value to this very important movement.  

Virginia Mediation Network Distinguished Mediator Award

Recognizing the Leaders 

in Our Field

Last week-end, the Virginia Mediation Network (VMN) bestowed its highest honor on my friend and colleague, Jeanette Twomey.

This award is presented annually to a prominent member of the mediation community in Virginia who demonstrates personal and professional commitment to advancing peaceful conflict resolution.

Candidates are recognized for one or more of the following qualities:

• leadership in promoting and advancing the field of mediation; 
• innovation in the development of mediation programs or creative applications of mediation; 
• significant published writings on the subject of mediation; 
• exemplary pro bono mediation service; 
• cutting edge advanced mediation training; or 
• dedication of time and energy to an active mediation practice that supports collaborative problem solving. 

Candidates must exemplify personal and professional integrity and respect for others, as well as demonstrated commitment to continuing growth of high quality mediation in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Candidates must be members of VMN in good standing.

Past Recipients:

2010: Prof. Paula Marie Young
2011: Lawrie Parker
2012: Carroll Edward Dubuc
2013: Geetha Ravindra

More About Jeanette

Jeannette is an experienced mediator, consultant, facilitator, and trainer in the field of conflict management and resolution. She has provided alternative dispute resolution (ADR) services since 1992, focusing on workplace, family, and elder issues. Ms. Twomey has provided training and facilitation to private organizations and government agencies including the U.S. Department of the Air Force, the U.S. Department of the Navy, the U.S. Department of Interior, etc.

She has been a leader in the dispute resolution field, serving on governing boards of both local and state ADR organizations.

She is a Mentor Mediator for the Virginia’s Mediator Certification Program and an appointed member of the Advisory Council for the Virginia Supreme Court’s Division of Dispute Resolution Services. She was instrumental in designing the mediation program for Arlington County’s General District Court.

Ms. Twomey served as President of Northern Virginia Mediation Service from 1996-1999 and was named the organization’s “Mediator of the Year” in 1994.

She is a member of the Virginia Mediation Network, the Association for Conflict Resolution, and the Virginia Bar.

She is an adjunct professor, teaching negotiation and mediation, at the American University’s Washington College of Law. She oftens teaches mediation ethics and professional responsibility.

Standing in my Power

This week, I held my last Board meeting as President of the Virginia Mediation Network (VMN).  It was a bittersweet moment giving me a chance to reflect back on all we had accomplished and the chance to say: "What's next!"

I remember the first meeting I conducted as VMN President, in October 2012.  I arrived frazzled and exhausted after staying up most of the night reading all the copies I could assemble of the minutes of past-Board meetings.  I was trying to find the loose threads that I might need to follow or tie up.

Then I turned my attention to my Dad's very old, yellow-stained, version of the Robert's Rules of Order that he had used as President of some professional organization a long time ago. I was trying to learn how to conduct the meeting the next day.

I was overwhelmed, but worked hard to be ready for the trust my tribe had placed in me.  As part of that personal growth of trusting myself and earning the trust of my tribe, I had:

• Attended a week long training at the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro that made clear-- through a 360 feedback process -- the support I had from all my Board members.  That experience gave me the confidence I needed to face the challenge with more courage and calm.
• Gotten training in a group facilitation method called Appreciative Inquiry that proved so helpful later on.
• Exceeded all my expectations by planning two conferences for VMN involving over 40 speakers.
• Launched a strategic planning process for the organization.
• Interviewed all 12 of the current Board members using an hour-long Appreciative Inquiry format and then interviewed about 10 of the past-Presidents.  In doing so, I learned more about my colleagues, the history of the organization, its ongoing challenges, and my colleagues' dreams for VMN's future. 
• Wrote four President's Messages, appearing in the VMN newsletter, that were intended to inspire our members;
• Supported my colleagues on the Board, as needed;
• Mastered the essential parts of Robert's Rules of Order after reading them another three or four times;
• Nearly mastered a web-based work platform called TeamViewer;
• Mastered the Doodle meeting planner platform; 
• Worked collaboratively with my President-elect, who has also become a close friend; and 
• Encouraged the women on the Board to "lean in" and "stand in their power."

One of the most interesting comments coming out of the interviews I conducted with past and current Board members was this.  Many said that they had not thought they could serve until someone asked them to do it.

That was certainly true for me.  First, VMN's leaders asked me to serve as Conference Committee Co-chair and then as President. Thank Heavens they had more confidence in me than I had in myself at the time. (Perhaps our new law students feel the same way.)  

After this experience, I won't wait to be asked to serve.  I will look for those opportunities.  I thank my VMN colleagues for letting me learn these lessons about my leadership capacities.  I love you, and I love our tribe. 

Qualities of a Good Mediator

Several years ago, the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law held its annual training for new mediators.   I served as a role-play coach and evaluator.  Those of us who have been through that training call it the “baby” mediation training.  Its principle purpose, in my mind, is to show the participants how little they know, even after they complete the training, and the significant challenges a mediator faces.  Mediation is not for sissies.

After three days of training, many of this year’s participants began to realize that mediation is hard work.  Several trainees realized that good mediation requires rough and tough litigators to move out of their comfort zones.  Good mediation requires a different set of skills from those used regularly by trial lawyers.

Missouri Supreme Court Rule 17 requires new mediators to have at least sixteen hours of “appropriate” training.  These requirements are quite modest.  Virginia, my new home, requires twenty hours of training.  New Virginia mediators must also observe two mediated cases and co-mediate three cases for at least a total of five hours.  The good mediators I know have hundreds of hours of training.  One of the best mediators in St. Louishas over 500 hours of training.  

Good mediators attend the annual conferences sponsored by the Association for Conflict Resolution and the ABA Section on Dispute Resolution, where mediators more deeply explore the theories underlying approaches to mediation, share experiences with other mediators, and buy the latest books on mediation and conflict theory.  Good mediators also belong to local professional organizations like the Association of Missouri Mediators, the Association of Attorney-Mediators, or the Virginia Mediation Network.  

In The Making of a Mediator: Developing Artistry in Practice, Lang and Taylor identify the following hallmarks of artistry in a mediation practice:  (1) Attending to detail, staying responsive in the moment, and observing nuances in the parties’ behavior, tone, and voice; (2) remaining curious and open to new perspectives on the stories the parties tell; (3) exploring all options and not being bound by limiting assumptions or simplistic characterizations of one party about himself or about the other party; (4) developing and testing formulations of the conflict and abandoning any formulations that are not accurate or stall the process; (5)  showing resilience and responding to the events and circumstances of the moment without losing sight of the goals of the process; and (6) showing patience, vision, and a clear sense of direction.  Id. at 24-36.   

In his book, Mediation Career Guide – A Strategic Approach to Building a Successful Practice, Woody Mosten identifies the roles a mediator plays as including: host, teacher, emotional counselor, referee, facilitator, idea generator, reality tester, negotiation coach, conflict manager and recording secretary.  Id. at 35.   He says that mediators are good listeners, effective communicators, patient, tolerant, neutral, empathetic, persistent, trustworthy, flexible, creative, positive, optimistic, and they can handle conflict.  Id. at 23. 

Walter Maggiola, in Techniques of Mediation, provides a list of the characteristics good mediators possess:

º           The patience of Job,

º           The sincerity and bulldog characteristics of the English and the wit of the Irish,

º           The physical endurance of the marathon runner,

º           The broken-field dodging abilities of a halfback,

º           The guile of Machiavelli,

º           The personality-probing skills of a good psychiatrist,

º           The confidence-retaining characteristics of a mute,

º           The hide of a rhinoceros,

º           The wisdom of Solomon,

º           Demonstrated integrity and impartiality,

º           Fundamental belief in human values and potential, tempered by the ability to assess personal    weaknesses as well as strengths,

º           Hard-nosed ability to analyze what is available in contrast to what might be desirable, [and]

º           Sufficient personal drive and ego, qualified by the willingness to be self-effacing.

Quoted in Mediation Career Guide at 31. 

So my advice to the latest crop of baby mediators is this:  Get more training.   Read the books on the list of recommended readings in your training manual, then order more books on mediation and negotiation from the leading provider – Jossey-Bass Publishers.   Read the articles at www.mediate.com.  Look for any opportunity to talk with more experienced mediators.  Look for anyopportunity to observe an experienced mediator.  Join the leading professional organizations so you receive their publications.  Stay humble.  I guarantee that the good mediators feel incompetent most of the time, but they are so drawn to the promise of mediation that they will do whatever it takes to assemble the skills required to feel less incompetent.   Congratulations.  And I wish you the best.

What do you think are the qualities of a great mediator?  I'd like to hear your comments. 

This article first appeared in ST. LOUIS LAWYER, August 7, 2002, at 10A (footnotes in original are omitted in this posting).

Mediation Community's Response to School Shootings

Virginia Mediation Network (VMN)

President’s Message

January 2013

The VMN Board of Directors met on January 12, 2013 to begin an intensive strategic planning process.    On the long drive back into the Central Appalachian Mountains, I stopped to visit my former research assistant.  Shortly after the shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, I sent an email asking how she was doing.  You see, she is one of the people who survived the shootings at my own little school on January 16, 2002.  She has suffered for ten years with severe PTSD.   She immediately blocked media reports of the shooting, found comfort in friends and family, and coped as best she can with her persistent symptoms. 

Many of you may remember that tragedy in which a student, who had learned he would be academically dismissed, murdered our Dean (a new father), a much beloved professor, and a student.  The shooter, later diagnosed as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, was spared the death penalty, and will spend all, or most of his life, in a mental health institutional setting.   Three other students, including my former research assistant, survived their grave gunshot wounds. 

After each deadly incident of school violence, our school community revisits our own tragedy in the many ways we expect a diverse culture to respond.   Facebook facilitates that conversation, but knowing how best to respond always requires some soul searching. 

My first response, and the one that has proved easiest for me, is how we care for the “victims.”  My own experience, coming to ASL six months after the shooting, has shown me that the circle of victims is much broader than one might first recognize.  Certainly our Restorative Justice (RJ) colleagues would recognize the scope of that circle.  It includes the parents, spouses, and children – of those shot and of the shooter.    A news story reports that Newtown’s first responders are dealing with their own psychological trauma.   Once they use paid vacation, leave, and other benefit days, they face losing their jobs because they are suffering themselves by stepping into that horrific crime scene.  Witnesses to the shootings bear their own suffering.  Most of the faculty and staff employed at that time at my school now work elsewhere.   Perhaps it was just too difficult to walk in to that building after that day.  

Much of the chatter on Facebook argues about whether armed people could have prevented the loss at the site of these massacres.  Eventually, one of our students, a witness that day, busted the myth around our own tragedy, by saying:

[S]everal of us students [w]ere armed that day, and he had completed his terrible acts before anyone could have done everything other than just kill him mercenary style.  [He] was out of ammo and voluntarily surrendered.  Perhaps [having] armed students thwarts any ideas of running from the scene, but the murders couldn’t have been prevented.

In preparing for the VMN Board retreat, I spent some time learning about the schools in Virginia that had dispute resolution programs.  Only one undergraduate school, Virginia Tech has a program.  It was the school’s response to its own loss of life at the hands of a troubled student.  The center for this program is housed in the building where so many people lost their lives. 

So, how do we as a community, focused on conflict resolution and peace building, respond to these situations?   The Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR) issued a statement on December 20, 2012.  It promised that: “We and many of our other colleagues stand ready to lend the full range of our professional expertise and devotion to processes that support healing, as well as those sustained efforts that will be required to facilitate dialogue, build consensus, and take action to address the deep rooted structural issues that contribute to this tragic pattern.”

The President of the American Bar Association, Laurel Bellows, issued a three sentence statement, on the same day of the Newtown shooting, expressing the organization’s sympathy for the victims and their families.   The Section of Dispute Resolution was oddly silent.  On January 16, 2013, President Bellows issued a statement about the ABA’s support for new measures to prevent gun violence.  It also supports efforts to prevent school-based violence and bullying and to enhance access to mental health services for children and adults.   It applauded President Obama’s announcement that same day and described it as “the catalyst that should spur immediate and far-ranging congressional efforts to address gun violence in our country . . . .” 

   

Psychologists for Social Responsibility recommended a ban on assault weapons, as well as a RJ approach.  Its spokesperson, in writing to Vice-President Joe Biden’s Task Force on Gun Violence, stated:

We see school attacks such as Newtown in the context of a broader culture that endorses force and violence as the way of resolving disputes, including war, urban violence and a harsh, punitive criminal justice system.

The group then recommended that public schools and youth justice systems integrate RJ principles and practices.

The Greater New York chapter of ACR plans, for the first week in February, a program entitled,Bringing the NYC Dispute Resolution Community Together in the Aftermath of the Newtown Tragedy: An Open Space Forum.   Using an “open space” format, the chapter members will discuss aspects of the tragedy that may include “the children, families, educators, the Newtown community, schools, gun concerns, violence, citizen responsibility, household accountability, justice, police, prevention, protection, laws, policies, and other issues and a way forward for our nation to imagine and work on safer futures four our children.” 

One of my ADR colleagues, who teaches at another law school, sent out the following message on our ADR listserve shortly after the Newtown murders:

ADR can be transformative in moving people away from violence and war--how can ADR scholars/practitioners participate in the current and upcoming debate on guns?  

After last week, I find myself (again) ready to enter the political fight with an uncompromising anti-gun view.  I am worried, though, that as usual the debate will get completely muddled and unworkable with multiple conflicting rights and values.  This worry makes me wonder (again) whether ADR people can help clarify this discussion and these kinds of discussions, especially if the ADR person has strong views on the topic.  Can we be leaders here?  

I'm sorry to write with all these questions.   I would so appreciate anyone's thoughts on the matter or advice on further reading.  I just feel so frustrated and powerless.

Mediators talk frequently about the joy we feel in helping parties feel empowered and better able to control the decisions they make in their lives.  And yet, here is a colleague feeling completely disempowered herself. 

So, how do we, as an organization respond to these situations which call into question our devotion to peaceful ways of resolving conflict?    As your President, I would like to know how to respond on your behalf, because right now, I also feel very disempowered.   

Paula Marie Young