Our Courses

Understanding recent discoveries concerning brain activity can move the mediation process forward.

One of the advantages of mediation is that the parties have an opportunity to tell their stories, something that rarely, if ever, happens in a court room. This can be a valuable tool in helping people move on from the situation that brought them to mediation. There are a number of different kinds of story tellers. Some catalogue their "facts" emotionally, others rationally, and all speak from their own frame of reference.

Implied in the mediation process is full disclosure by all parties. This usually produces the most trusting arena for the process. It is common for one or both parties to withhold some information for a variety of reasons. Learn how this can affect the mediation, how to tell if someone is lying, and what difference it makes to the outcome in this interactive seminar full of "tall tales".

Discuss current issues and ethical dilemmas in depth with your colleagues. As the profession of mediation continues to morph from its origins more than 30 years ago, see how ethics have changed, or not, with the times. What has been kept, what had been discarded and what has been added. This is a hands-on workshop dealing with the latest ethics opinions from the Georgia Office of Dispute Resolution.

Every experienced mediator knows that as a case unfolds, the aspects are disclosed slowly and not always completely or honestly. Often, the facts come to light only when one party reveals them about the other, and they can be distorted or manipulated to fit an agenda. Learn how to recognize hidden agendas and the emotional games people play, how to ferret out information that will bring everything into the open and how to draft a fair agreement while remaining neutral.

Take a trip down the rabbit hole into the world of the "soon to be divorced." We will be exploring the perspectives of both the male and female, the imbalance of power during this time, different thoughts from the one who is being divorced and the one who is doing the divorcing. We will show you how to help a couple mediate in these choppy waters. What to look for, what to expect and how to keep your sanity.

We will approach this subject from the perspective of client expectations, client disinterest and lack of legal knowledge. How pro se mediation presents conundrums for attorney mediators and non-attorney mediators. We will also discuss the ethics of working with this population.

Great skill builder for mediating court cases as well as corporate and agency cases/issues. We will teach a brief intervention model that focuses on helping parties move forward without the need to look back.

A discussion of the anatomy of influence .How does this powerful and sometimes subtle and illusive commodity affects the mediation process. How mediators can recognize and direct influence. Illustrated by two fishbowl mediations.

This is a good, thorough review of why it pays to be professional. Know how to avoid parties from reporting unethical/unprofessional behavior. Reacquaint yourself with the value of guidelines, self determination, confidentiality and the state ethics rules. Lots of case studies!

The hurt that parties bring to the mediation table can be harnessed and productively directed. Learn to understand and recognize forms of anger, including the "shadow side" and gender specific anger. We provide practical techniques for handling volatile emotions.

Learn what a personality disorder looks like, how cluster "B" behaviors impact the mediation process, how to keep your head while others are losing theirs, crafting agreements that work.