Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Annotated Working Draft of Final Project and Hot Spots in Legal Mediation

Component Assignments:

1. Communication and Persuasion in Law
As I wrote this post I remained very broad in the field of law, not emphasizing on legal mediation. In this post I traced back the ancient roots of the legal system in Greek and Roman civilization, then relating the rule of law to the current United States legal system. In particular, I wrote about the role of a judge in both an ancient and modern courtroom, which relates to mediation.

2. Storytelling in Legal Mediation
This post describes a legal battle between NFL players and their families and the NFL itself. While the story does not give a verdict, the post explains the process a case can go through before arriving at the mediation stage. In this instance the mediation was court-mandated, but in most cases it is a mutual decision of the opposing parties.

3. Legal Mediation within the History of Civilization
While the practice of bargaining and mediating has been around since the beginning of time, in the United States the practice is still in its beginning stages. Mediation only began to be taught at law schools across America in the 1970s and 80s. Today many attorneys are hesitant to involve mediators, feeling it departs from the juris-prudence roots of our country.

4. Institutional Authority and Communication in Legal Mediation
This post recounts a story to illustrate the role of institutional authority, regulation, and communication within the legal field in regard to mediation. While the ABA does have a few useful resources to help attorneys and legal professionals facilitate as mediators, the niche remains somewhat untouched.

Hot Spots:

Hot Spot #1 (in the field/historical): Although mediation is now a part of law schools all across the nation, attorneys still hesitate to participate. This hesitation arises from several insecurities, including the heavy juris-prudence history of the US Court System (centered in courtrooms), fear of the attorneys and clients that the result will not be advantageous, or localities not having proper mediation resources available (i.e. qualified mediators).

Hot Spot #2 (personal): The law firm I work at is trying to incorporate mediation into both our practice and our website. Part of my job is to develop this content, so I am constantly doing research on how to involve mediation in our law firm.

3 comments:

  1. With my dad being an attorney, I can understand why lawyers are hesistant to involve others that have legal power besides a judge. But many of the cases are mediated. I think this is a good hotspot to address, but I would also include examples when mediation have gone wrong as well as talk about the benefits.

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  2. Also another reason why Attorneys could be hesitant is because they don't feel like there is a profit in mediation. They feel like they can get more money by putting cases through Arbitration or Adjudication.

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  3. I'm definitely not as informed as many about Law, but I would like to know the progression of mediation within law and if it ends up being a greater benefit in the future.

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