I’ll add to John DeGroote’s surely swelling head….

I am constantly amazed how small a place the ADR community is.  At least the part I have on RSS feed.  So, when both Nancy Hudgins and Diane Levin wrote in high praise of John DeGroote’s new blog, Settlement Perspectives, I had to swing by and check it out.

John has already posted several extremely entertaining and informative posts on negotiation, touching on such ideas as managing expectations and the power to walk away.  This promises to be an excellent resource for a broad audience, from young BigLaw associates to inside counsel to mediators.

It also reminds me that I should be a little more serious now and again and provide real value to my readers.

UPDATE:  Vickie piles on the bandwagon.

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 John Lassey!

A belated welcome to the League of Web Log Authors to John Lassey, author of Mediation Stuff. I am very glad that John has joined the ADR debate, because his blog will focus is on

those matters where the primary motivation for the participants is money. . . . [i.e.] situations where the main (if not the only) question is “how much?” and the pie tends to look the same at the end of the process as it did at the beginning.

Most of the cases I am currently dealing with are of just this type. I am looking forward to reading through his site and opening a dialogue on how to deal with these one-dimensional commercial disputes.

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.

The Negotiation Guru Blog

Some of you may be familiar with Jens Thang’s Negotiation Guru blog, but I only recently discovered it after he commented on Vickie Pynchon’s recent post “How to Make Your Opponent Do What You Want Him to Do.” I have only skimmed through the content (I have to attend a 2 year old’s birthday party), but what I’ve seen so far is very interesting and well written. I plan to take a deeper look this week and suggest that you do, too.

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.

Legal Antics

If you want some good legal humor (or humouuuur for Geoff), head over to Legal Antics.

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!

Meeting the Sin Laws – a blog by a local First Amendment lawyer.

Last night I met a very interesting local lawyer named Cary Wiggins. He represents Georgia’s restaurant and hospitality industry, but has developed a niche representing “adult entertainment” establishments. This can be a hot button issue down here in the buckle of the Bible Belt, despite Atlanta’s cosmopolitan veneer.

Cary maintains a very interesting blog called Meeting the Sin Laws, which focuses on “laws affecting adult entertainment, alcoholic beverages and other “vice” industries” (I also found it interesting that he, too, uses the word “musings” when describing his blog.)

He also has a petition for certiorari that has attracted some attention from the SCOTUS blog’s Petitions to Watch list:

2025 Emery Highway, dba Club Exotica v. Bibb County, Geo.
– Whether a Georgia sheriff’s acts as an “arm of the state” and is thus entitled to 11th Amendment immunity when enforcing county ordinances related to alcoholic beverages and adult entertainment.

Check it out.