Happy Trails, Geoff.

I seriously doubt that any of you who read my blog do not read Geoff’s.  But in case you don’t, Kiwi Mediator and blogger extraordinaire Geoff Sharp is stepping down from his mediation blog, mediator blah…blah.

Geoff’s blog was one of the first I found as I was researching whether and how to dive into the mediation blogosphere.  I will definitely miss his informative, yet very entertaining, self-deprecating style.

Quite ironically, he was the first to try to talk me out of quitting blogging back in May.

Geoff’s posts will be missed and I wish him the best in whatever new challenges and family matters that are pulling him in different directions.

Does how write betray our gender (biases)?

Apparently so, says GenderAnalyzer.com.  Just plug in your blog’s URL and their “artificial intelligence” will determine whether your blog was written by a man or a woman.  According to them, there is a 63% chance that my blog is written by a man.  Quite amazing actually, since I do shave my legs*, which make up about 34% of my body….

Plug in your favorite dispute resolution blog.  You may be surprised by some of the results.

Read more after the jump.

Law Students to Compete in Arbitration Competition

This coming weekend, the National Arbitration Forum and the American Bar Association Law Student Division will be co-sponsoring an Arbitration Competition for nearly 200 law students from around the country. The participants will simulate an arbitration hearing involving a dispute concerning election campaign law.  Regional winners will advance to the National Finals in San Antonio in January 2009.

If you live near one of the regional sites, I would wholeheartedly suggest attending or seeing if they still require volunteer judges.  I enjoyed judged the regional ABA Negotiation Competition last year.

WhoCanISue.com – a sign of the Apocalypse?

Albert Einstein is said to have remarked, “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”  I cannot find a source indicating to what he was referring (it was likely the atomic bomb), but it could just as easily been about WhoCanISue.com.

Time Magazine reports that this “innovation” is the brain child of Curtis A. Wolfe, formerly general counsel for Fort Lauderdale-based private equity firm Ener1 Group.  Apparently Mr. Wolfe thinks that traditional ways of finding a personal injury lawyer — the back of the yellow pages, daytime TV commercials, the sides of city buses — are insufficient.  He must also distrust state or local bar associations, most of which have referral services stocked with names of competent, qualified counsel.

Wolfe claims that his service is free to the consumer and offers “real-time access to attorneys.”  As opposed to, say, a phone call to a local law firm.  I have never met a reputable lawyer who charges for an initial consultation.

Why is access to the courthouse a bad thing, you may ask?  As prominent Miami trial attorney Richard Sharpstein “scoffs” in the Time article,

Our country’s courts are clogged with unnecessary and frivolous lawsuits which delay, if not obstruct, the access to courts of people that really need to get there, that have serious legal grievances.

Even a law professor sitting in her ivory tower at Uinversity of Florida law school agrees that this website “is likely to increase the number of lawsuits.”

Parties with legitimate grievances should have access to the courthouses.  I wonder, however, whether there are so many legitimate cases languishing because the plaintiff could not find counsel.  Is this really a service needed?   Unlikely.

See also, Overlawyered.

I Made the Cut for Alltop!

In case you haven’t noticed the new “badge” over in the left hand column (likely because you read the RSS feed), my humble blog has been added to the “Law” Category on Alltop, a website that collects “stories from “all the top” sites on the web and aggregates them to a single page. They call this “single-page aggregation.” The founders of Alltop, Will Mayall, Kathryn Henkens, Guy Kawasaki want you to think of Alltop as “a “dashboard,” “table of contents,” or even a “digital magazine rack” of the Internet.”

I’m honored to be listed among the heavyweights of the ADR blog community, such as, Mediation Channel, World Directory of ADR Blogs, Settle It Now Negotiation Blog , Mediator blah…blah…, Conflict Zen, Engaging Conflicts, and Idealawg; as well as some of the best law blogs out there, such as Overlawyered, The WSJ Law Blog, and Above the Law.

Thanks to Alltop for letting us crash the party.

Welcome to the ADR Blogosphere, Nancy Hudgins!

Take a few minutes and visit the relatively new blog by Nancy Hudgins, a Bay Area mediator and civil litigator. Nancy was kind enough to drop by and comment on one of my recent posts. Her blog has the admirable goal of “making a pitch for putting the “civil” back into civil litigation.” I couldn’t agree more.

Looking forward to more dialogue with Nancy.

Cheers.

Could Online Mediation Really Work?

The MSN Money Blog is reporting today about a new website called VirtualCourthouse.com. The web site claims to provide

a marketplace of qualified professionals to service your case needs. Our service lets you resolve cases entirely online, lowering your costs and increasing your volume.

While I can see the benefit of online arbitration or neutral evaluation, I’m somewhat dubious about how online mediation would work. Before anyone suggests that my resistance stems from some sort of protectionist attitude, I am all for developing new ways to help parties resolve disputes. Again, I see how this could work very well for small claims arbitration. Especially, as the article states,

[cases that have only] two parties, involves a dispute over money (as opposed to other forms of relief) and is not emotionally charged, he said. Fender-bender lawsuits fit the bill; custody cases and nasty disputes between neighbors do not.

In that case, there is not much testimony to hear or documents to review. As the founder of the website states,

[if you have a] soft-tissue injury in a rear-end automobile accident [where the plaintiff] went to a chiropractor 15 times and incurred bills of $2,600. . . . It’s just an issue of how much is reasonable compensation for this individual.

But one of the key benefits of mediation is the face-to-face interaction with the participants. To listen to their positions, their interests, their needs. How is this accomplished online? Chat rooms? I handle these type of cases a few days a month in small claims court. I doubt that any of them could have been settled online.

Welcome “Mediation Meditations” – a blog title surely to confuse search engines everywhere.

Welcome former silk stocking, Wall Street lawyer turned mediator Christian Herzeca to the mediation blogger team. Christian already has some interesting posts. I look forward to reading more of his opinions.

Some new (to me and hopefully not you) ADR blogs…

Reading through the names of the bloggers called out in Vickie’s post on licensure, I found a few blogs I had visited before, but had been remiss in adding to my blogroll. So, without ado, here they are:

Schau’s Mediation Insights. – Jan Frankel Schau had taken a few months sabbatical, but is back.

Stephanie West Allen- Idealawg – Stephanie may be my only ally on the licensing issue!

CResearch - A blog for sharing conflict resolution-related research, news, and commentary.

Colin Rule’s Blog – For those of you seeking some light reading on IP, game theory, and law, among other subjects.

New ADR Blog – The HealthCare Neutral ADR Blog

Following Vickie Pynchon’s lead, I’d like to welcome Mr. Richard Webb of The HealthCare Neutral ADR Blog to our merry band of ADR Bloggers. Mr. Webb writes that he will “blog at the intersection of ADR and healthcare law.” In the 10 days or so of his nascent blog, Mr. Webb has already posted quite a bit of useful information, including a series of posts entitled “Why ADR Works in Healthcare.”

Welcome and best of luck!