Southern California Arbitration Mediation and Conflict Resolution : Settle it Now Dispute Resolution Services : Serving Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Century City : Settle It Now Negotiation Blog

The lowest level, most critical, most easily learned (you can even use a cheat sheet!) and most shockingly ignored skill is authenticating documents and bringing them within the available exceptions to the hearsay rule.

As we wade ever deeper into the waters of electronic discovery, E-Commerce Law provides us with the Internet Evidence Series below.

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I've directed my readers to Adir Waldman's fine book Arbitrating Armed Conflict before.  Now that there is pitched battle in the Middle East with significant civilian casualties, I once again recommend Adir's book to anyone who wishes to look beyond taking sides. 

The following summary is from Juris Publishing where the book remains available for purchase. 

In Arbitrating Armed Conflict Adir Waldman examines a previously unstudied, yet critically important, experiment in international law.

In April of 1996, Israel and Lebanon reached an extraordinary written Agreement: armed conflict between the Israel Defense Forces and the Lebanese terrorist militia Hesbollah would continue, but both forces would be bound to an explicitly agreed upon set of rules intended to protect civilians.

To support this unique international pact, the parties established an equally unique arbitral institution—the Israel-Lebanon Monitoring Group—to hear and resolve complaints regarding breaches of the Agreement.

Through a series of confidential interviews with highly informed participants, Mr. Waldman casts the first light on this exceptional system of international and military law. In addition, this volume presents a complete collection of decisions rendered by the Israel-Lebanon Monitoring Group, a true gold mine of previously unpublished material, as well as a highly confidential internal memorandum obtained by the author. In a day and age of seemingly unbounded conflict, the lessons of this system, with both its pitfalls and its virtues, will prove crucial, and this book an indispensable guidebook to that system.

Accessible to the lay reader, this book is sure to be of interest to a wide audience — scholars, practitioners of international and military law, students of political science and foreign relations, observers of the Middle East and the wider public in general.

Now more than ever the international community should consider potential solutions to the Orwellian term "collateral damage" as a product of  inevitable border wars, solutions that will, at a minimum, make an effort to protect the innocent.

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Dear Colleagues:

On behalf of the UCLA Mock Trial Program and the UCLA Anderson School of
Management, I am inviting you to volunteer as a trial judge or scoring
judge at the 2009 UCLA Mock Trial Invitational Competition on Martin
Luther King weekend, January 17-19, 2009. The trials will be at UCLA Law
School and the UCLA Anderson School. This year’s case involves a civil
defamation case where a political candidate was wrongfully accused of
murder by a national news network. The case has both civil and criminal
law aspects. No prior trial experience is necessary to serve as
volunteer judge.

You'll see college students present Openings, Closings, Direct & Cross
Examinations. Trial judges will rule on objections and introduction of
exhibits, while scoring judges will rate the students' performances.
Some of the top teams in the nation will compete, and most of the
California colleges will be there (UCLA, USC, UCI, Cal, Stanford, etc.)

I have attached a Word file containing detailed information about the
3-day event. You can volunteer on Saturday, Sunday and/or Monday (Jan.
17, 18, 19). If any of you can volunteer to judge for one or more of
these rounds we would be very grateful. Parking and meals will be
included! Please e-mail or call Associate Dean Gonzalo Freixes of the
UCLA Anderson School (faculty advisor for the UCLA Mock Trial teams) if
you can help us out at gonzalo.freixes@anderson.ucla.edu or
310-794-6640. Thanks for your consideration and Happy Holidays.

-Gonzalo

Gonzalo Freixes, Associate Dean
Office of Professional MBA Programs
The Anderson School at UCLA
110 Westwood Plaza, Suite A101f
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1481
gonzalo.freixes@anderson.ucla.edu
Phone: (310) 794-6640
FAX: (310) 825-3165

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I'd stop flogging this dead horse if I didn't have to weekly convince litigants of their own enduring human tendency to prefer relative well-being over absolute material possessions.

This week, that "news" is brought to you by the New York Times to explain why a surprising number of us have not been made terribly unhappy as our financial fortunes decline.  As Op-Ed contributor Sonja Lyubomirsky (of The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want) observes today:

the economists David Hemenway and Sara Solnick demonstrated in a study at Harvard, many people would prefer to receive an annual salary of $50,000 when others are making $25,000 than to earn $100,000 a year when others are making $200,000.

Why? Because we "care more about social comparison, status and rank than about the absolute value of our bank accounts or reputations."  In other words, we're more concerned with justice (fairness) than we are about the money.  Which is why our clients have sought out our help with their personal, financial and commercial problems -- because we're in the justice business.  When we understand this, the negotiation of financial settlements becomes a whole lot easier because there are many more ways to deliver justice than by throwing money at it.  

Read the full (short) article Why We’re Still Happy here.

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LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION® hosts Blawg Review # 191 celebrating the Festival of Lights and wishing all of us   ×—×’ ×—× ×›×” שמח or    Happy Chanukah! 

We here in the Goldberg-Pynchon household celebrate both Chanukah and Christmas, as you can see from the really really bad iPhone photo of last night's menorah blazing before the tree in the background. 

The Menorah represents Torah She'baal Peh or the "Oral Law" which is a companion of the Written Torah; the part that man can derive, embellish, and - in a sense - 'create' by using his own diligence and intelligence in accord with the God-given hermeneutical principles.  In other words, the Torah She'baal Peh is the original mash-up and hence a fitting symbol for Ron Coleman's brilliant (pun intended) Blawg Review #191.

Eight days, we learn from Ron's post, is the Hebrew equivalent of This is Spinal Tap's 11 on the dial. 

Nigel Tufnel: t's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.

But I digress.

Listen, I have nothing to add.  Which is why I'm fooling around here.  You just have to go to Ron's Blawg Review to get the full magnificence of the effort.  I've done one of these Blawg reviews myself and collapsed from exhaustion.  Ron put the whole thing off until the Sunday it was due (if he's not lying to me) which means . . . . well . . . .  he's AWESOME.  And, god bless him, if you ever feel geeky, you know there's a least one legal blogger geekier than thou.

(8's being so . . . well, holy or something . . . we do note that if you let the "1" in the hundreds place stand for the "servant" candle and subtract the remaining "1" from the 9 in the 10's column, you get Blawg Review #8 which was hosted by Crime and Federalism back in 2005.  But that's not all.  This is my 1,007th post -- really -- EIGHT!!  All of which simply re-proves this:  you can make something of nothing and nothing of something, particularly if you ever attended law school).

And for our Jewish readers' viewing and listening pleasure, Adam Sandler singing his infamous Chanukah song.

 Blawg Review has information about next week’s host, and instructions how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues.

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Check out Liz Straus' 25 Traits of Twitter Folks I Admire and 25 Folks Who Have Them.  These "traits" are in fact disciplines.  Achieving them on a consistent basis is work but work worth doing.  Use them to guide your way in the new year and your conflicts with your fellows will decrease and your fortunes rise!  Thanks Liz!  Click on the link above for the Twitter "Folks" who have these traits and follow them.

1. don’t seek to be the center of any universe.

2. find great conversations and get to know the people there.

3. realize that every venue has it’s own culture and rules.

4. do their own talking and their own listening.

5. talk mostly about the accomplishments of others.

6. ask intriguing questions that invite others to join the conversation.

7. don’t worry when folks don’t respond to something they say.

8. have time for new friends, talk to them, listen to them, read their sites and bios, ask them questions — avoid assumptions.

9. have a different conversation with every individual and every business.

10. take embarrassing or private conversations offline.

11. are inclusive and encourage folks who exclude people to exclude themselves.

12. shout out good news, help in emergencies, and celebrate with everyone.

13. say please, thank you, and you’re welcome, and mean them.

14. are incredibly curious about what works, what doesn’t work, seek feedback often, and look to improve what they do.

15. study the industry and trends, watch how things occur, share information about those freely, but never break a trust.

16. offer advice when people ask. Help whenever they can.

17. aren’t “shameless.” Ask for help in ways that folks are proud to pitch in.

18. are constantly connecting people and ideas in business conversations that are helpful, not hypeful.

19. get paid to strategize business, build tactical plans, but won’t “monetize” relationships.

20. ignore the trolls.

21. keep their promises.

22. can be transparent without being naked … most of us look and behave best in public with our clothes ON.

23. listen to the hive mind, but think their own thoughts.

24. send back channel “hellos” to friends when there’s no time to talk.

25. understand that the Internet is public and has no eraser.

The relationships with people — social in social media — is what is changing things. It makes a business experience worth looking forward to and turns a transaction into a relationship. It’s different online because I can’t see you. When I meet folks who make that distance and darkness disappear, I respect and admire them.

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Book Review of Conflict Revolution; Mediating Evil, War, Injustice and Terrorism: How Mediators Can Help Save the Planet by Kenneth Cloke reviewed by Victoria Pynchon - Get more College Essays

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From E-discovery implications of Twitter at Lawyers USA

The social networking site Twitter.com allows users just 140 characters to describe what the user is up to – a post known as a "tweet."

But lawyers advising clients on e-discovery or using Twitter themselves need to realize that tweets are discoverable.

"Twitter posts are like any other electronically stored information," explained Douglas E. Winter, a partner at Bryan Cave in Washington, D.C. and head of the firm's Electronic Discovery unit. "They are discoverable and should therefore be approached with all appropriate caution."The increasing popularity of Twitter has made electronic discovery even more complicated.

Litigators!  Remember, you and your opponent(s) have a choice. It's not only in arbitration that you can make your own law, but by way of stipulated case management orders cooperatively crafted with an eye toward relative cost and likely benefit (ask me for a template!)

I don't need to tell you that clients are cutting back in 2009.  The litigation practice that thrives will be the most efficient and effective dispute resolution vehicle on the road.

And now, for your moment of zen - Charlie Dickens.

Jarndyce and Jarndyce drones on. This scarecrow of a suit has, in course of time, become so complicated that no man alive knows what it means. The parties to it understand it least, but it has been observed that no two Chancery lawyers can talk about it for five minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises. Innumerable children have been born into the cause; innumerable young people have married into it; innumerable old people have died out of it. Scores of persons have deliriously found themselves made parties in Jarndyce and Jarndyce without knowing how or why; whole families have inherited legendary hatreds with the suit. The little plaintiff or defendant who was promised a new rocking-horse when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled has grown up, possessed himself of a real horse, and trotted away into the other world. Fair wards of court have faded into mothers and grandmothers; a long procession of Chancellors has come in and gone out; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed into mere bills of mortality; there are not three Jarndyces left upon the earth perhaps since old Tom Jarndyce in despair blew his brains out at a coffee-house in Chancery Lane; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags its dreary length before the court, perennially hopeless.

Jarndyce and Jarndyce has passed into a joke. That is the only good that has ever come of it. It has been death to many, but it is a joke in the profession. Every master in Chancery has had a reference out of it. Every Chancellor was "in it," for somebody or other, when he was counsel at the bar. Good things have been said about it by blue-nosed, bulbous-shoed old benchers in select port- wine committee after dinner in hall. Articled clerks have been in the habit of fleshing their legal wit upon it. The last Lord Chancellor handled it neatly, when, correcting Mr. Blowers, the eminent silk gown who said that such a thing might happen when the sky rained potatoes, he observed, "or when we get through Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mr. Blowers"--a pleasantry that particularly tickled the maces, bags, and purses.

How many people out of the suit Jarndyce and Jarndyce has stretched forth its unwholesome hand to spoil and corrupt would be a very wide question. From the master upon whose impaling files reams of dusty warrants in Jarndyce and Jarndyce have grimly writhed into many shapes, down to the copying-clerk in the Six Clerks' Office who has copied his tens of thousands of Chancery folio-pages under that eternal heading, no man's nature has been made better by it. In trickery, evasion, procrastination, spoliation, botheration, under false pretences of all sorts, there are influences that can never come to good. The very solicitors' boys who have kept the wretched suitors at bay, by protesting time out of mind that Mr. Chizzle, Mizzle, or otherwise was particularly engaged and had appointments until dinner, may have got an extra moral twist and shuffle into themselves out of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The receiver in the cause has acquired a goodly sum of money by it but has acquired too a distrust of his own mother and a contempt for his own kind. Chizzle, Mizzle, and otherwise have lapsed into a habit of vaguely promising themselves that they will look into that outstanding little matter and see what can be done for Drizzle--who was not well used--when Jarndyce and Jarndyce shall be got out of the office. Shirking and sharking in all their many varieties have been sown broadcast by the ill-fated cause; and even those who have contemplated its history from the outermost circle of such evil have been insensibly tempted into a loose way of letting bad things alone to take their own bad course, and a loose belief that if the world go wrong it was in some off-hand manner never meant to go right.

Thus, in the midst of the mud and at the heart of the fog, sits the Lord High Chancellor in his High Court of Chancery.

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As CR Info explains

People tend to break off interaction and communication with those they dislike. When this happens people become stuck in autistic hostility, that is, their hostility is perpetuated by their refusal to communicate.

One-time Colorado Avalanche forward Steve Moore and former Vancouver Canucks winger Todd Bertuzzi met in Toronto on Monday for a court-ordered mediation hearing in an effort to prevent a lawsuit from heading to court.

It was the first face-to-face meeting between the two since Bertuzzi's infamous sucker punch during a March 8, 2004, game in Vancouver that ended Moore's career.

Let's see.  That's nearly FIVE YEARS with no communication.

Read this article.  Rinse.  Repeat.

From cbcsports.ca with h/t to @DalydeGagne in my twitter network.

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