The Mediation Field Guide: Transcending Litigation and Resolving Conflicts in Your Business or Organization - Hardcover

Mediation is changing the way we do business around disputes. As more and more people view conflicts as problems to be solved rather than victories to be won, legal and business practices have shifted away from litigation and toward mediation as a means of dispute resolution. In The Mediation Field Guide, Barbara Ashley Phillips reveals the inner workings and potential of the mediation process and shows how to apply this versatile and powerful tool to matters touching business, organizational life, and the family. Phillips exposes the traps and stumbling blocks-such as the "lawyer culture"-that create obstacles to resolution. She explains the differences between various types of mediators and tells how to evaluate and select the right one. She examines the technique of writing agreements in mediation as well as the problems of mediating with difficult people and in difficult situations. She also documents the effectiveness of the techniques in the book with examples of specific applications in the insurance business, the construction industry, environmental and employment disputes, community disputes, business conflicts, and institutional disputes, both public and private. After a long history of moving disputants further and further apart from each other and making their exchanges increasingly ritualized and formal, the tide has turned. Conflict resolution is now everyone's business, and The Mediation Field Guide empowers everyone involved in the process--client, party, lawyer, law student, and mediator?to consciously participate in the design and development of dispute resolution systems worth having. THE AUTHOR Barbara Ashley Phillips served as Assistant United States Attorney in federal district court, Oregon, before becoming a mediator. In over twenty years of mediation practice, she has resolved complex, multi-party disputes and a wide range of sensitive issues, including cases of sexual harassment, discrimination, wrongful termination, partnership disputes, and environmental issues, in such fields as construction, computers, insurance, medicine, securities, real estate, and aviation. She offers training in the U.S. and Canada through American West Institute for Conflict Resolution and the North American Institute for Conflict Resolution. She can be contacted at www.mediate.com/baphillips.

BARBARA ASHLEY PHILLIPS served as Assistant United States Attorney in federal district court, Oregon, before becoming a mediator. In over twenty years of mediation practice, she has resolved complex, multi-party disputes and a wide range of sensitive issues, including cases of sexual harassment, discrimination, wrongful termination, partnership disputes, and environmental issues, in such fields as construction, computers, insurance, medicine, securities, real estate, and aviation. She offers training in the U.S. and Canada through American West Institute for Conflict Resolution and the North American Institute for Conflict Resolution. She can be contacted at www.mediate.com/baphillips.