About Alysoun

I am an off-campus PhD candidate at the University of Newcastle – having just moved from Monash University.  I am also a Director and Fellow of Resolution Institute, and was the national vice-president of IAMA before its integration with LEADR.  I am an ADR practitioner and trainer, especially mediation training, and a Senior Mediator Member of the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal (having designed the mediation program that ACAT uses), and am on the mediator panels for the ACT Supreme Court and for the Arts Law Centre of Australia.  I am also a member of the ADR Advisory Council (ADRAC), of the Law and Society Association (USA), and of the American Bar Association Task Force on Research into Mediator Techniques.  Prior to entering the world of ADR, I worked in various public service positions, including as a senior policy advisor on illicit drugs, advising the then ACT Chief Minister; in that capacity, I conducted an extensive international consultation process that informed the ACT Government’s proposal for a trial of medically prescribed heroin.  I live on a mountain property in a small, remote community in NSW, where I am the Training Officer for, and an active member of, the local fire brigade.  My son lives and works in Seattle (USA), and I have immediate family in Sydney, and in Switzerland. 

Thesis Research Project

My research topic arose from my mediation practice and my training of mediators: what is it that makes some mediators so much better, or more effective, than others?  I am concentrating my research on review and analysis of existing empirical studies of mediation and of mediator techniques, and have been very fortunate to have access to a compilation of almost 90 reports from such studies that was pulled together by the ABA Task Force on Research into Mediator Techniques.   I am constantly updating and rewriting my research questions, but, in essence, they are:

1. What is known about mediator influence over participant behaviour and participant perceptions, including perceptions of mediation effectiveness?

2. What is known about what mediators actually do in mediation that is so influential?

3. How can mediator behaviour and levels of influence be effectively measured and analysed?

4. What differences might it make to existing theories about mediation, existing mediator practices, and existing mediator training regimes if specific mediator behaviours (rather than models of practice, or styles and approaches) were found to be key predictors of mediation effectiveness?

What is most exciting for me about my research?

I am thoroughly enjoying learning about mediation research, meeting ADR researchers (in Australia and overseas), and gaining insight into, and understanding about, the characteristics of very effective mediators. I am currently working with a US academic on a report to be presented by the ABA Task Force, and that is certainly an exciting project.  Last year, I attended a compulsory seminar on the philosophy of law and that activated every curiosity neuron in my brain, which is always an exciting event; however, the most exciting aspect of my research has been learning about the unfamiliar world of academic research: its social norms, its language and its rules.  It has been something of a cross-cultural experience for me. 

What challenges have I experienced with my research?

It seems to me that everything I have done around this research project has been a challenge.  For example, I have had to learn how to turn ideas into formal research questions; how to write in an academic style; how to consistently apply strict citation styles.  I have also had to master some of the infinite capacities of the internet so my off-campus attendance is neither isolating nor an obstacle.
While learning how to be an academic researcher has been exciting for me, it has also been a challenge.  Although I have conducted many graduate and post-graduate ADR courses at universities, these have always been in the form of 3 or 5 day intensives, rather than extended, regular university attendance.   Becoming an academic researcher is quite different from parachuting in for an intensive and then jumping back out.

Where would I like to go after I finish my research project?

Once this project is completed, I would like to progress to empirical study of mediator behaviour to identify, or confirm, what very good mediators actually do that makes them so much better.  Some commentators have referred to the ‘black box’ of mediation*, and I would like to see that dark, mysterious container opened so researchers can properly study what actually happens in a mediation, and mediators can use accessible research findings to improve their practice techniques.
On the other hand, my family owns a very small, mediaeval house in a perched village in Provence (built in around 1100AD), and I would really enjoy some time on its balcony, listening to the bees in the lavender, the church bells in the distance, and the rhythms of local greetings.   

* For example, see: L. B. Bingham, ‘Transformative Mediation at the United States Postal Service’ (2012) 5 Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, p 363; L. Charkoudian, ‘Just My Style: The Practical, Ethical, and Empirical Dangers of the Lack of Consensus about Definitions of Mediation Styles’ (2012) 5 Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, pp 371 and 380; J. A. Wall, Jr, and S. Chan-Serafin, ‘Processes in Civil Case Mediations’ (2009) 26 Conflict Resolution Quarterly, p 262. 

We’ve received the following Call for Abstracts  from the ASIL Dispute Resolution Interest Group about the Yale Law School Center for the Study of Private Law Junior Scholars Workshop:

The American Society of International Law’s Dispute Resolution Interest Group and Yale Law School’s Center for the Study of Private Law are hosting a workshop for junior scholars. The workshop will be a safe space in which aspiring academics, post-docs, doctoral students, fellows, VAPs, other non-tenure-track academics, and pre-tenure professors can get feedback through group discussion on academic works in progress in international dispute resolution. Authors will not give formal presentations of their work. Rather, each accepted paper will be assigned a discussant, who will briefly introduce the paper, provide feedback to the author, and lead a discussion among participants. This format permits lively discussion of ideas and writings that may be inchoate or not yet fully developed. Discussants may include other junior academics at Yale and other authors participating in the workshop.

The workshop will be held at Yale Law School on the afternoon of Friday, October 28, 2016. All participants will be expected to attend the entire workshop and to be prepared to comment on the other papers, up to a maximum of three. We are unfortunately unable to fund travel but will host a dinner in the evening.

500-700 word abstracts may be submitted by midnight Eastern Time, July 15, 2016 to this folder: https://www.dropbox.com/request/weafBJW4I7tI2TEDu4Af. (A Dropbox account is not necessary to submit documents.) Any topic related to international dispute resolution will be considered. Submissions must be works in progress and should not have been submitted for publication. Abstracts will be reviewed by ASIL Dispute Resolution Interest Group Co-chairs Perry Bechky and Christina Hioureas together with Sadie Blanchard of the Center for the Study of Private Law.

The authors whose proposals are chosen will be informed by August 15th, 2016. All participants must submit a substantial work in progress by October 7, 2016, which will be circulated in advance of the workshop to registered attendees. It is expected that this work will consist of a working draft paper at least 20 pages long. Participants whose drafts are longer than 30 pages will be asked to focus the attention of the discussants and other participants on key excerpts.

Please direct any questions to sadie.blanchard@yale.edu.

Apart from obvious issues such as language and those associated with being present in an unfamiliar territory, a conflict resolution practitioner must be sensitive to cultural issues relating to the ‘way of doing things around here’ and the extent to which the conflict is embedded in cultural ways of knowing.

A conflict resolution practitioner needs to be ‘culturally aware’ of, and ‘culturally sensitive’ to, the issues involved in the conflict including transportability and applicability of culturally distinct models of conflict resolution to a culturally constructed conflict. An awareness of, and sensitivity to, cultural issues would make the conflict resolution practitioner culturally competent, but the conflict resolution practitioner must also be culturally fluent.

Cultural fluency extends beyond both cultural sensitivity and awareness. It requires an awareness of one’s own cultural biases, assumptions, prejudices and stereotypes, and how those might impact on the conflict resolution process. Practitioners intervening in conflict situations must be aware of how their motives, actions, and expectations are culturally engendered and affect the conflict resolution process and the outcome.

Intervention must also include consideration of the ways in which culture becomes embedded in conflict and is politicised. The ability of the conflict resolution practitioner to use various techniques of intervention and to be creative is crucial to the resolution of cross-cultural conflicts. Intervening in cross-cultural conflict situations could be challenging because of the diversity and complexity of issues, but it is clear that intervention requires that conflict resolution practitioners be flexible, creative and fluent.

“Construcción del puente sobre el río Almonte” By Yeza (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

You are welcome to share your experience as a third party in a conflict/dispute involving cultural issues including approach, skills and lessons learned.

I’ve just spent the past 4 days in a whirlwind of ideas and conversations at the American Law and Society Association annual meeting in New Orleans. (You can follow the fascinating Twitter feed for the conference Here.) Three ADR Research Network members presented papers at the conference: Professor Rachael Field from Bond University, Professor Tania Sourdin, Dean of Newcastle Law School and me. Both Tania and I tweeted prolifically at the conference.

There were lots of wonderful papers about dispute resolution, judging, case management and therapeutic and procedural justice. The conference often had 12 parallel sessions running, with papers each plus discussants, from 8.15am-5pm for 4 days straight. I have a strong case of ideas-overload right now.

I think what I love the most about huge conferences like this one are the conversations that take place outside and around the formal paper sessions. It is there we are able to make real connections with researchers in other jurisdictions and think about how developments in other legal systems might reveal truths about our own legal system.

Over a very nice glass of vinho verde, I was having such a conversation with Dr Bridgette Toy-Cronin, Director of the Legal Issues Centre at the University of Otago in New Zealand and Dr Karni Perlman of Bar Ilan University on Israel. We were comparing civil justice reforms in our countries and methods used by governments  to streamline litigation and increase settlements before trial. Sometimes parliaments and courts attempt to de-legalise disputes by banning lawyers or forcing parties to appear unrepresented in litigation or other dispute resolution procedures. In Israel, and New Zealand recent legislation has required family law disputants to attend informal dispute resolution processes or litigation without their lawyers.

Both of these developments remind me of how, in Australia between 2006 and 2009, just after implementation of the major family law reforms making family dispute resolution (FDR) compulsory in many family law childrens’ disputes, guidelines banned lawyers from attending FDR seasons at Family Relationship Centres. Those guidelines very revised in 2009 and lawyers are now involved productively and cooperatively in FDR in a number of cases, including in special FDR process set up to support victims of family violence.

To my way of thinking, ousting lawyers from legal processes and discouraging legal representation is a very crude way of attempting to streamline dispute resolution procedures. Such measures are based upon the false assumption that the source of adversarialism is lawyers. Therefore, it is reasoned, having clients go ‘naked’ without their legal counsel, will facilitate a collaborative settlement. 

This assumption ignores several truths that are well-established by research. One ignored truth is that a key role that lawyers play in civil disputes is to manage the expectations of their clients. Lawyers often assist with reaching a settlement by encouraging their clients to accept an outcome that is closer to what the other side may see as reasonable, thus bringing the parties closer together. A second ignored truth is that legal advice plays an important protective role in ensuring that clients, in the absence of their lawyers, don’t bargain away rights that they will need. Legal advice helps prevent unjust settlements, especially where there is an imbalance of negotiating power. Forcing clients to negotiate or litigate without their lawyers may unreasonably disadvantage vulnerable parties.Edit

We’ll continue our conversation about the implications of cross-national civil justice reform that ejects lawyers from dispute resolution processes.  

  We hope to use the experiences of other jurisdictions to inform development of civil justice policy. Without the chance to meet and chat about our own work at the conference, we would never have made the connection between justice reforms in these three diverse jurisdictions. 

Can you help? Are there any examples of similar reforms in your jurisdiction or area of practice that reject the involvement of lawyers? Please post a comment here or email me.

About Rebecca

Rebecca Edwards is currently completing her PhD at La Trobe Law School, Bendigo. Rebecca has been employed on a sessional basis in the School of Law for the last 9 years teaching a large number and broad range of subjects including Dispute Resolution. Prior to this work, Rebecca practiced as a lawyer for over 10 years in rural and regional Australia, working predominantly for legal aid clients (both as a private solicitor and as an employee of Victoria Legal Aid), as well as a two year period working of the Kimberly Land Council as a Native Title Lawyer in Broome, WA, and a 3 month stretch as a volunteer legal analyst at the United Nations Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda based in Arusha, Tanzania. Rebecca now balances work and study with family life with her two primary school aged children, a number of board roles and the running of a small farm where the family raise small-scale free-range, grass-fed, ethically raised pork, lamb and beef and duck eggs.

Rebecca’s research

Consistent with its philosophy to support unrepresented litigants, in June 2009 the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (“VCAT”) implemented a pilot strategy in mandated mediations involving an unrepresented litigant and a mediator who is not a Tribunal member (known as a panel mediator). The strategy was to provide parties in these mediations with a cooling off period of two business days, enabling them to withdraw from a meditated agreement without penalty.

Through the use of electronic surveys of mediators and telephone interviews with disputants, Rebecca is attempting to discover whether VCAT’s innovation actually does provide support to unrepresented litigants. Her two main research questions are:

• whether the unusual and innovative provision of a cooling off period following a mediation is utilised by unrepresented disputants (i.e. do disputants actually seek advice about their mediated agreement subsequent to the mediation?)
• whether the provision of a cooling off period following a mediation empowers unrepresented disputants (i.e. regardless of whether disputants speak to anyone about the mediated outcome, do they feel better about the outcome knowing that they can withdraw from it without penalty for a certain period of time)

The research is currently at the stage of analysing the data with final write up expected later this year.

 Papers and presentations

Rebecca first presented a draft paper on her research at the ADR roundtable in Sydney in September 2016. A more up-to-date paper was presented at the Asia Pacific Mediation Forum’s Conference, in Lombok, Indonesia in February 2016. With luck and hard work, a solid draft of the thesis is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

UNSW Law is seeking expressions of interest from world leading researchers (Professors and Associate Professors) in a range of areas, including civil dispute resolution.

For full details, see:

http://www.law.unsw.edu.au/news/2016/05/unsw-law-seeks-expressions-interest-leading-researchers-private-law-corporate-and

The position description specifies a broad range of areas:

• Private law, in particular, tort law, contract law, equity, remedies and civil dispute resolution; and
• Corporate and commercial law.

I am happy to serve as a preliminary point of contact for readers of the blog.