The Mediation Field Guide: Transcending Litigation and Resolving Conflicts in Your Business or Organization - Hardcover

by Barbara Ashley Phillips (Author)

At last--the definitive one-stop guide for anyone who wants to know what mediation is and how it works. The Mediation Field Guide is a comprehensive primer that is filled with practical strategies for elevating conflict resolution to a process that can effectively resolve business, personal, community, and institutional disputes on multiple levels. Throughout the book, expert mediator Barbara Ashley Phillips provides insights into both the simplicity and complexity of the inner workings of mediation that will enable you to use the process with the skill and finesse of a professional mediator.

Front Jacket

Mediation is changing the way we do business around disputes. As more and more people view conflicts as problems to be solved rather than victories to be won, legal and business practices have shifted away from litigation and toward mediation as a means of dispute resolution. In The Mediation Field Guide, Barbara Ashley Phillips reveals the inner workings and potential of the mediation process and shows how to apply this versatile and powerful tool to matters touching business, organizational life, and the family. Phillips exposes the traps and stumbling blocks-such as the "lawyer culture"-that create obstacles to resolution. She explains the differences between various types of mediators and tells how to evaluate and select the right one. She examines the technique of writing agreements in mediation as well as the problems of mediating with difficult people and in difficult situations. She also documents the effectiveness of the techniques in the book with examples of specific applications in the insurance business, the construction industry, environmental and employment disputes, community disputes, business conflicts, and institutional disputes, both public and private. After a long history of moving disputants further and further apart from each other and making their exchanges increasingly ritualized and formal, the tide has turned. Conflict resolution is now everyone's business, and The Mediation Field Guide empowers everyone involved in the process--client, party, lawyer, law student, and mediator?to consciously participate in the design and development of dispute resolution systems worth having. THE AUTHOR Barbara Ashley Phillips served as Assistant United States Attorney in federal district court, Oregon, before becoming a mediator. In over twenty years of mediation practice, she has resolved complex, multi-party disputes and a wide range of sensitive issues, including cases of sexual harassment, discrimination, wrongful termination, partnership disputes, and environmental issues, in such fields as construction, computers, insurance, medicine, securities, real estate, and aviation. She offers training in the U.S. and Canada through American West Institute for Conflict Resolution and the North American Institute for Conflict Resolution. She can be contacted at www.mediate.com/baphillips.

Back Jacket

At last-the definitive one-stop guide for anyone who wants to know what mediation is and how it works. The Mediation Field Guide is a comprehensive primer that is filled with practical strategies for elevating conflict resolution to a process that can effectively resolve business, personal, community, and institutional disputes on multiple levels. Throughout the book, expert mediator Barbara Ashley Phillips provides insights into both the simplicity and complexity of the inner workings of mediation that will enable you to use the process with the skill and finesse of a professional mediator. "This is a first-rate work on both the 'why' and the 'how' of mediation. It is meaty, written in a refreshingly readable style, and is deserving of a very wide audience of professionals and interested members of the public." --David B. Wexler, professor of law and director, International Network on Therapeutic Jurisprudence, University of Puerto Rico, and Lyons Professor of Law and professor of psychology, University of Arizona "If you want to explore below the surface of conflict, if you want to open your heart as well as your mind; if you want to discover real wisdom from a master mediator, this is the book for you. Barbara Phillips is clear and profound, intelligent and attuned, expansive and insightful. Buy this book and find out why." --Kenneth Cloke, coauthor of Resolving Conflicts at Work and author of Mediating Dangerously "The Mediation Field Guide has something for everyone interested in learning about mediation's promise. Barbara Ashley Phillips's insights offer a lens that views the majesty of mediation in its broadest societal and historical context. The informed reader will be inspired and the uninitiated will be convinced." --James J. Alfini, professor of law, Northern Illinois University and past chair, American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution "This book will be extremely useful and enlightening for anyone involved or interested in mediation, whether as a client, party, lawyer, law student, or mediator. I would also highly recommend it to anyone involved in litigation, just to provide a fresh perspective. Phillips does an excellent job of mixing practical, real-life examples with theory. She also has an excellent grasp of the historical context of and deeper philosophical issues underlying the new mediation paradigm she describes. One can only hope that her ideas and approaches to resolving human conflicts become widespread and universally embraced." --Susan Daicoff, associate professor of law, Florida Coastal School of Law

Author Biography

BARBARA ASHLEY PHILLIPS served as Assistant United States Attorney in federal district court, Oregon, before becoming a mediator. In over twenty years of mediation practice, she has resolved complex, multi-party disputes and a wide range of sensitive issues, including cases of sexual harassment, discrimination, wrongful termination, partnership disputes, and environmental issues, in such fields as construction, computers, insurance, medicine, securities, real estate, and aviation. She offers training in the U.S. and Canada through American West Institute for Conflict Resolution and the North American Institute for Conflict Resolution. She can be contacted at www.mediate.com/baphillips.