Scott Van Soye

Scott Van Soye is the managing editor of ADR Times. He is also a full-time mediator and arbitrator working with the Agency for Dispute Resolution with offices in Irvine, Beverly Hills and nationwide. He is a member of the California Bar, and practiced real estate, civil rights, and employment law for over twenty years. He holds an LL.M. in Dispute Resolution from Pepperdine University, where he is an adjunct professor of law. He welcomes your inquiries, and can be reached at scott@adrtimes.com or (800) 616-1202, Ext. 721

Anger Masks Emotions in Mediation

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Anger Masks Emotions in Mediation

Famed psychologist Paul Ekman calls anger one of the six basic emotions. He notes that its expression is universal across cultures. Even as infants, we instinctively recognize and react to its presence in those around us. According to Ekman, anger originates when an important goal is frustrated, or someone tries to hurt us or someone we feel responsible for, physically or psychologically. Under this definition, anger is a response to threatening external stimuli, which is often accompanied by a desire to hurt the source of the anger producing events.

De-escalating Encounters with Confrontational People

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De-escalating Encounters with Confrontational People

If you are a conflict resolution professional, you are very likely to meet with angry, confrontational, and aggressive people on an almost daily basis. You may even be called in specifically to deal with them, if you are an HR professional or an ombuds. It’s almost inevitable. People in conflict are almost always emotional. Even business disputes aren’t “just business.” Our emotions affect every decision we make.

The ADA Interactive Reasonable Accommodation Process

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The ADA Interactive Reasonable Accommodation Process

The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) requires covered employers to grant reasonable accommodations to those otherwise qualified employees who are able to complete the essential functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodation. The employer may negate the duty by showing that the only possible reasonable accommodations impose an undue hardship on the employer.

Mediation Privilege: The Twin Supports of Resolution (Part 2 of 2)

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Mediation Confidentiality and Privilege: The Twin Supports of Resolution

The companion provision to mediation confidentiality is the mediation privilege, which makes evidence of mediation communications inadmissible in future legal proceedings. As with the confidentiality provisions discussed above, local laws are a crazy quilt, with only about half the states having adopted the UMA or similar provisions. The federal courts are even more inconsistent.

Mediation Confidentiality: The Twin Supports of Resolution (Part 1 of 2)

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Mediation Confidentiality and Privilege: The Twin Supports of Resolution

Mediation is negotiation with the assistance of a neutral third party. It is a process, and like other processes has stages. Those stages are different depending on which role you play. But either way, each stage requires your active participation if you are to succeed. In this article we detail the 5 stages of mediation for mediators and disputants.

Problems, Problems Everywhere…

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Anyone who has ever worked as corporate counsel knows it ain’t easy. Corporate counsel has to deal with lawsuits, human resources, risk management, internal politics, and an ever-changing landscape of compliance landmines.  To make matters worse, the higher-ups do what they want, when they want… and then they come to tell you about it just …

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