Presenter: Lee Jay Berman
MCLE: 1.0 General
This workshop focuses on one of the negotiator’s most powerful, and often overlooked, tools for influencing people – the artful question. Whether we need to avoid an impasse as mediator, or move our own client off of their entrenched positions as an advocate, nothing is more powerful than the intentional, strategic use of truly artful questions.
Designed for both mediators and advocates working with entrenched parties in difficult negotiations, the program explores how carefully crafted questions can help people move beyond rigid positions, reconsider assumptions, and become more open to settlement. Rather than using questions merely to gather facts, participants will learn how questions can shift perception, reduce defensiveness, test beliefs, uncover interests, and create space for reflection.
The workshop examines why parties become stuck, including their emotional investment in grievance or victim narratives, confirmation bias, identity threats, sunk-cost thinking, over-confidence, reactive devaluation, and positional bargaining. In this workshop, we will learn how to respond to these dynamics without confrontation, using questions that invite curiosity rather than resistance.
A central outcome of the workshop is that participants will leave with more practical tools for moving people who are entrenched in their negotiation positions. We will study and practice open-ended, reflective, future-oriented, hypothetical, comparative, reality-testing, and consequence-focused questions, with attention to timing, phrasing, neutrality, emotional intelligence, and rapport.
The program also emphasizes perspective-shifting techniques that help parties consider viewpoints they may currently reject. Through demonstrations, storytelling, hypotheticals, and structured practice, mediators will learn how to adapt questioning strategies to different personalities, dispute types, emotional intensities, and attorney-client dynamics.
When we look at “Thinking Big, But Starting Small,” as this conference’s theme, settling civil and employment cases is big, which can lead to a great reputation – both as mediator or advocate. But in order to do that, and to build the practice that takes you to the next level, you have to start small with the day-to-day skills. And those skills need to start with a structured framework for using questions to move parties beyond positional conflict toward reflection, flexibility, dialogue, and durable resolution.
Presenter: Phyllis Cheng, Esq.
MCLE: 1.0 General
This presentation will cover current and emerging developments in California employment law, including case law, statutes and regulations, appeals pending before the California Supreme Court, the new federalism impacting federal and state enforcement agencies, and how these trends impact mediations.
Presenter: Angela Reddock-Wright, Esq.
MCLE: 1.0 Civility
Mediating employment disputes is notably different from mediating other types of legal disputes, and special skills are required to excel in resolving what can feel like so much more than a mere ‘dispute’ to the participants. Led by former SCMA President and expert employment mediator, Angela Reddock-Wright, two experienced and accomplished employment litigators, one from the plaintiff side and one from the defense side, will take us through what they expect an employment mediator to do for them and their respective clients, and what key information they wish the mediator could convey to the other side more effectively. They will also discuss what kinds of employment mediators they want to hire again and again.
Presenter: Michael D. Young, Esq.
MCLE: 1.0 Competence
We allow the use of a bargaining process in our mediations that, by colloquial definition, begins with “insult rounds”.
They call them insult rounds for a reason – because they are insulting! Why are we adopting a resolution tool that is almost guaranteed to make the parties mad at each other?
We need to rethink what we are doing. As mediators, we are guardians of a process whose goal is to bring peace to disputing parties.
Forget what we were taught at Hogwarts Mediation School, we need to think critically about what we do and say, and how we mediate. If the process doesn’t bring joy – to you, to your attorneys, to your parties – then it’s time for a change.
This workshop, featuring expert employment mediator Mike Young, and moderated by CEMI Chair Anthony Khoury, will explore the negotiation dance in the context of cognitive biases as a launching point to challenge us to think critically about what we are doing, and to give us all permission to break the mold to create a more fulfilling and affirming process.
Presenters:
MCLE: 1.0 General
Civil mediations often include a participant that is neither litigant nor counsel, but who has arguably the biggest role in deciding whether or not a case will settle—the insurance claims adjuster.
In this workshop, civil defense attorneys and claims adjusters discuss how they prepare for mediation and how mediators can communicate more effectively with defense counsel and insurance representatives before, during, and after mediation.
The panel will also address strategies for post-mediation follow-up when cases do not resolve at the session, including the effective use of mediator’s proposals.
This workshop will offer a rare opportunity to peel back the curtain on how settlement decisions get made when dealing with an insurance carrier.
Presenter: Adam Wannon
Whether you’re launching a new mediation practice or looking to grow an established one, this session covers the three pillars that separate thriving practices from stagnant ones.
We’ll start with a quick marketing 101 — what’s actually working for mediators right now when it comes to web presence and visibility.
Then we’ll get into the data you rarely see:
We’ll break down repeat booking rates, client concentration, and other benchmarks that paint a real picture of what a healthy practice looks like.
We’ll close with a brief look at how technology — including Scale Mediation’s platform — is helping mediators manage all of this without the administrative overhead.
