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Seeing through the blind corner

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There’s a blind corner down by the allotments near the school that parents in SUVs have to crawl around. Whichever way they’re coming from, they don't know if the exit is safe. All they know is that it’s a high-risk area They stick tight to the side when they really want to take a wide line for better visibility. But if they go wide, then they’re on the wrong side of the road. So, they crane their necks for an impossible view and slow to a snail’s pace Often, they meet another car or a pedestrian and have to reverse uphill, around the corner, just to let someone else pass. There’s no rule about priority and no clear right or wrong. They just have to work out, silently, who will make the concession Later in the day, those same two vehicles might approach the bend from opposite directions again. No preference or tribalism, just a situation, a state of affairs they've ended up in Each driver only knows their own approach; information they have no way of revealing to the other. The...
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  When the fun stops, stop litigating… Did you ever put a bet on something with long odds just in case, because you had a good feeling? Were you the one person who bet on Leicester winning the Premier League in 2016, or on Argyle knocking Liverpool out of the FA Cup last year? You have to speculate to accumulate, right? Do you only buy a lottery ticket when there’s a double rollover? What’s your risk profile? All your savings in emerging markets, or just a ticket at the school tombola? Did you ever bet all the money you have and also all the money you have tied up in your family home on a legal position that you don’t really understand but your solicitor says you have a 70% chance of winning and 70% is really really high? Did you put your solvency on the line? How about that? When you’re litigating, you’re gambling, on a high roller, thousands of pounds at a time You can have the best case in the world (a staggering 70%), have all your ducks in a row, witnesses all lined up, none o...
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I know you've got the legal position nailed

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I know you’ve got the legal position nailed. I see that in the statements of case and the position statement And I promise all of that will weigh into how the day proceeds. We’ll look in detail at your risk profiling and your assessment of weaknesses in their case and procedural points you’re going to take if we don’t reach a settlement But effective solutions often require us to deliberately step away from the pure legal position Because a dispute between two people or organisations is always about more than the lawyers' positions Litigating for 20 years has taught me that a messy human dispute can’t be simply constrained by legal principles written by a lawyer as agent to craft in letters. Principles which, no matter how convincing they are presented in perfect prose on expensive papers, never hit home with the opposing lawyers, who just do the same back That traditional approach will detract from getting both sides to the place they need to get to, and send them locked in to bat...
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Impartial

  I don’t like the word 'impartial.' It feels wrong to me Impartial is a judge who doesn’t care about the outcome and listens to legal points with no involvement in the humanity of the case, only coldly applying rules to facts • Impartial is an Ombudsman, a football ref, an umpire at Wimbledon • Impartial is someone with no skin in the game • Impartial *might be* the BBC (depending on who you ask) • Impartial is a non-participating character, reporting and analysing strictly to reach a result I don’t want to do that. Impartiality is cold, and it imposes a distance between mediator and client I can’t do my best work at helping create a solution for you without a full understanding of your viewpoint; without walking a mile in your shoes When you’re trusting me to know everything about your case, the least you can expect is that I support your case’s strengths, and work to get the best result for you and your client, in the space and time available I want to support you on the...
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