featured articles

We Have A choice

Daily Journal, June 2020

As a mediator and citizen, I’d like to underscore the courageous choices of a few police chiefs (Chris Swanson, Flint, Michigan; Andy Mills, Santa Cruz, California; Kenneth Miller, Petersburg, Virginia; Anthony Ambrose, Newark, New Jersey; Joe Wysocki, Camden, New Jersey; Art Acevedo, Houston, Texas) who have put down their batons, taken off their helmets, listened, kneeled and walked with the protesters.

The Myth of “One Truth”

DRI, September 2012

The legal myth of “one truth” has led us astray. Accord- ing to the myth, litigation and trials are a search for “one truth.” But if there is only “one truth,” why do we need 12 people to find that “one truth” and why are we satisfied if only nine agree on “one truth”? More interestingly, how can we expect 12 lay people—in a matter of days—to find this “one truth” when that “one truth” eluded the opposing lawyers for years in pretrial discovery and continues to elude them at trial?

Apologies & Lunch

NAPABA, Fall 2014

Apologies and lunch — two of the most effective tools in dispute resolution — are normally not even listed as possible litigation tactics. Clients expect their lawyers to be “tough,” “demanding,” and “aggressive.” They don’t expect their advocates to say “sorry” or “do lunch.” In the beginning, I too believed the myth of “lawyer warrior.”