ROADS TO Resolution ~ Closure ~ Certainty

Sharing with you today's "Thursday Tip of the Day".  Embrace and enjoy your summer! Reconnect with friends, family, yourself. Put on your flip flops and shorts. Enjoy the beach, mountains, rivers, cities, planes and trains - wherever your summer will take you. "In the words of Chris Erskine, Writer, from his column this week, titled "Summer Love", I quote: "I pre...

To be an excellent lawyer for a client in mediation it is not enough to just say, “Oh I’ve got a mediation tomorrow, here, let me pick up the file and head on out.” To be excellent, it takes more than that. Listen to this episode as Host, Jean Lawler–commercial + insurance mediator and arbitrator–shares her list of top 3 things that excellent lawyers do for their clients in mediation. Resources me...

You know, people think that they are at an impasse... But are they really? Is there perhaps more room to move? Or are you really done? In this episode, Host, Jean Lawler–commercial + insurance mediator and arbitrator–discusses the following: Two important mediator tools that she uses to test whether parties are at an impasse in mediation: “ifs” and ranges  The benefits of “ifs”, and How to know wh...

Now, we all learned early in life that you tell the truth. Right?  And this is very true when it comes to an application for insurance. In this episode, Host, Jean Lawler–commercial + insurance mediator and arbitrator–discusses recission of an insurance policy and answers the following questions: When does rescission of insurance policies happen? What kind of situations can you get into with this?...

We have contracts all over. You buy a car, you have a contract. You rent a property, you have a contract. You buy a house, you have a contract. Our lives are filled with contracts, and most of us probably don’t read them word for word. However, to put it simply: Read the Contracts! In this episode, Host, Jean Lawler–commercial + insurance mediator and arbitrator–discusses four examples of conditio...

Civility in the legal profession is embodied in all sorts of laws, rules, codes, and creeds. There’s nothing new about civility. It's just a way of conducting our lives that hopefully will make not just our own lives, but everybody’s lives better. And certainly for those of us in the legal profession, isn’t that our calling? In this episode, Host, Jean Lawler–commercial + insurance mediator a...

Your client’s mediation is coming up.  You know your client’s position. You’ve probably prepared your client for what to expect at mediation. However, as the lawyer, have you prepared yourself for how you are going to negotiate at mediation? Host, Jean Lawler–commercial + insurance mediator and arbitrator–talks about 3 mistakes lawyers make at mediation. Hint: Effective negotiation at mediation is...

As an attorney, do you ever start mediation by making an extreme opening offer or demand–one that is either really far below or really far above where your client ultimately wants to settle? In this quick, two-minute “Thursday Tip of the Day”, Host, Jean Lawler–commercial + insurance mediator and arbitrator–talks about why attorneys don't need to make opening offers or demands that are in the...

Are you an attorney, claims professional or party with litigation pending in California? Are you keeping up with the latest in California Section 998 offers? Watch your 998’s and how you word them! In this quick “Thursday Tip of the Day”, Host, Jean Lawler–commercial + insurance mediator and arbitrator–provides a case law update on two California appellate court cases that were decided on October...

In this final episode of the mini-series on insurance and mediation, Host, Jean Lawler–commercial + insurance mediator and arbitrator–draws from her deep knowledge of the insurance industry, insurance policies and the various risks they insure against to talk about: the insured’s own policy limits and the insured’s own policy and how that then affects the claims and lawsuits that might be asserted...

In this fifth episode of the mini-series on insurance and mediation, Host, Jean Lawler–commercial + insurance mediator and arbitrator–draws from her deep knowledge of the insurance industry, insurance policies and the various risks they insure against to talk about her five tips for mediating where insurance–an insurer–is going to be paying the settlement money. Episode highlights include:  Why la...

What types of insurance policies are there? Well, there are many many types. But let’s talk about the basic types that end up in mediation or end up in claims. In this episode, Host, Jean Lawler–commercial + insurance mediator and arbitrator–draws from her deep knowledge of the insurance industry, insurance policies and the various risks they insure against to talk about: a first-party policy vs....

The topic of “risk transfer” in insurance can get very complicated. Who pays when you are faced with a lawsuit and there are multiple defendants, and some may owe other defendants (or a defendant) contractual indemnity or have named a co-defendant as an additional insured on their insurance policy? How does this all play out, and what if they don’t go ahead and honor that obligation?  In this epis...

Are you a lawyer who encounters insurance issues in mediation from time to time, but not an everyday insurance lawyer? If you aren’t an everyday insurance lawyer, it can be tempting in mediation to just jump right away to talking about bad faith damages only to have the insurance company’s attorney respond with, “Why is this other attorney just talking about all these bad faith damages, but they’r...

Insurance can be an unknown and maybe even somewhat intimidating aspect of mediation if you’re not an insurance lawyer and if you don't know insurance. Yes, it takes years to understand all insurance, but you can learn to read any insurance policy in five steps, because there are at least five basic things that every insurance policy includes. In this episode, Jean Lawler–commercial + insuran...

There are as many ways to overcome impediments to settlement as there are creativity and people involved. Every case is unique and every situation is unique. There’s no one “right” answer which means that the parties, the mediator, the lawyers, everybody needs to be nimble and needs to be able to adjust based on how the mediation is going and what comes out. In this episode, Jean Lawler–commercial...

Oftentimes settlement negotiations begin with offers or demands that are at the far extreme. So if you do receive an offer or demand that you’re ready to roll your eyes at, and it's like, “Come on, I’m ready to pack it up and leave”. Number one: Don’t leave.  It may take a few offers and demands going back and forth in order to get to the “dance floor”--a range where parties can be negotiatin...

Online dispute resolution is here to stay. People like it. There will be those cases where people want in-person mediation, but people have realized the convenience of an online mediation, the cost-savings of an online mediation, and the fact that it works, and does resolve cases. In this episode, Jean Lawler–commercial + insurance mediator and arbitrator–draws from her experience in mediating 245...

So July has passed, and we’re in those final days of summer, and there’s a lot that can be done now. If you do have a little bit of a lull, certainly enjoy it on a personal basis. Appreciate the time and the season. For both work and play, it's a really magical time of the year. But once you have done your refreshing and revitalizing…What sort of things on a professional level can you do to h...

The mantra should be that mediation is a process, not an event . So when you have insurance issues or funding that’s coming from insurers–multiple insurers, and maybe multiple insurers and their insureds–then you need to consider how best to approach that so it doesn’t negatively impact the mediation in the underlying case. In this episode, Jean Lawler–commercial + insurance mediator and arbitrato...

“Being a law firm leader is an incredible honor. You lead wonderful people and together all of you will work toward the betterment of the firm.” In this episode, Jean Lawler–commercial + insurance mediator and arbitrator–draws from her past experience as a managing partner at her former law firm to share her words of wisdom on law firm leadership. From the importance of creating opportunities, to...

As an attorney, have you ever wondered when is the right time to mediate a case? “Well first of all, there is no one right time. Only you as the lawyers, the parties, the claims representatives, the general counsel, the people involved in the day-to-day aspects of the case can decide when it's the right time. But it is most certainly the wrong time to go to mediation if you have not evaluated...

The mediation brief is about more than informing the mediator.  “It is something that you can use to explain to the other side–whoever the decision-maker might be on the other side–why you think you have a viable case, why it might have the value that you will ultimately be asking for or be willing to pay, once you’re in the mediation session. It can help set the stage.” In this episode, Jean Lawl...

Pre-mediation calls between attorneys and the mediator, whether jointly or separately, are a useful part of mediation preparation. Of course, these calls can be used for things like scheduling, but what is really productive is where, “the mediator serves as a moderator–so to speak–of that call, and asks questions like, ‘Are there any other documents, are there any documents that either of you beli...