CMC Dates:
December 13
CMC Executive Committee Meeting,
1-2pm, CMC Gay Street Conference Room
January 25
CMC Board Meeting and Liaison Board Meeting, 5:30-7:30pm, CMC
Juvenile Court Annex Conference Room
DECEMBER
15
Friday,
5:30-8:30PM
CMC & TVMA
COLLABORATIVE
WINTER
HOLIDAY
PARTY
AT
TVUUC (CLICK FOR MAP)!
As we did last year, please bring a
potluck dish and plenty of good cheer. We'll have music and
warm candlelight, and will honor all our
volunteers for the
massive amount of work they've done this year! (Isn't it
scary to see the word "winter"
not to mention 2007???) Email
or call Jen at 215-6570 if you have questions about what to
bring. CMC will supply beverages, plates, silverware,
music and
will light the fire in the fireplace!
CMC is
collaborating with Knox County General Sessions Court and our colleagues at
University of Tennessee College of Law Mediation Clinic to present a special
training for RULE 31 CIVIL MEDIATORS who would like to volunteer to mediate
civil cases of all shapes and sizes in General Sessions Court. The
training will be held at the Law
School
on Friday, January 26, from 4-8 PM
and on Saturday, January 27, from 9
AM- 12 NOON. Free Parking, free
supper, and a chance to give and get back.
Everyone
knows that the only way to be a great mediator is to PRACTICE,
PRACTICE, PRACTICE! (Just like how you get to Carnegie Hall!)
While we can't guarantee successful outcomes, we can certainly guarantee
interesting cases and disputants...think "Judge Judy" without having to
lecture the parties!
FOSTER CARE REVIEW BOARD MEMBERS NEEDED
IN KNOX COUNTY
If you are interested in serving on Knox County Juvenile Court's
Foster Care Review Board, please contact Sally
Swanner at 215-6436. The FCRB is appointed by Judge
Irwin to review all cases of children in state DCS custody to make
sure no child falls through bureaucratic cracks and that all
children are "parented" well by the State while they are in custody.
Several CMC mediators serve or have served on the Board.
The time commitment is surprisingly small for
how much impact the volunteer work has. The Board meets the
first Tuesday of each month, from 5PM-7PM at the Juvenile Court on
Division Street. Members are assigned to one of eight panels which
then review 4-5 cases each (depending on the case load), by
interviewing the children along with responsible adults---foster
parents, group home reps, biological parents, service
providers and caseworkers. All citizens who care about
improving the system and making a difference in the
lives of children should apply---the child welfare system is an
amazing thing, but it takes "watchdogs" who will make sure it keeps
ticking properly for the benefit of the kids.
TVMA
Dates:
January 16
(3rd Tuesday), TVUUC,
6:30pm
social time, 7-8pm,
Presentation about the
Transformative Mediation
Framework, and how it differs from the more familiar evaluative and facilitative
(agreement-driven) models, and comparison to CMC's phase model. CME/CLE I hr.
$5 for members, $35 for non-members.
Knoxville Bar
Association dates:
KBA Lunch and Learn
at Calhoun's on the River, at 12 noon
($35 members, $50 nonmembers):
:: December 7, 2006
"Keep the %*#!@ China -- or How to
Settle a Divorce Case"
Featuring: Bernard E. Bernstein,
Bernstein, Stair & McAdams, LLP
Bernie Bernstein has been a prominent member of the legal community, and the
community at large, in Knoxville (and beyond) since founding his law firm in
1959. Utilizing his business background, he has developed a reputation for
professional excellence while focusing his practice on civil litigation,
domestic relations, business litigation, commercial law and real estate
matters. At the same time, he has served on the board of directors and/or as
an executive officer for numerous companies and charitable organizations, he
has served as an adjunct instructor at UT law school, and he has been an
active member of various legal associations at the local, state and national
level. This is your opportunity to gain new insights from an award winning
litigator on how to settle emotionally charged cases.
KBA ADR Section:
Events will always be held at
Anderson, Reeves & Herbert, P.A. - 2607 Kingston
Pike, Suite 130 (Tyson Place), at 5:30-6:30pm on the first Monday of the
month. They each have been approved for 1 hr CME/CLE.
$15 for KBA members; $25 for
nonmembers. ($5 extra the day of the event.) Nonattorney nonmembers pay the
same price as attorney members!
::
January 8, 2007 (Note Date Change)
"Pro Bono Mediation Opportunities in Knoxville: How pro bono work assists
mediators, lawyers, the courts, the profession, and our bottom line."
Speaker:
Jackie Kittrell,
Executive Director, Community Mediation Center
- Local and state-wide professional mediator networks (TVMA, TAPM, TCMA)
- Community Mediation Center history and programs
- Knox County General Sessions Court opportunities (overview of training and
procedures)
- Knox County family mediation opportunities (divorce, post-divorce, Knox
County Juvenile Court unmarried parenting mediation)
- Parenting Education Seminar (PES) presentations on parenting medi
These past few months have been very busy
ones for CMC. Our recent work is focused on making CMC more
sustainable and more responsive, allowing us to do what we do even better, and allowing us to
add new programs.
We are right in the middle of our annual
donor appeal and encourage everyone to send in their gifts and pledges. As
you can see below, responses are coming in steadily, and we feel extra
thankful this year for the outside support.
As many of you already know, most of our
workload comes from assessing, scheduling, and mediating parenting cases for
low-income never-married parents referred from the Child Support Division.
Up until now, our juvenile work has been under-funded, primarily because of
the high percentage of the petitioners in that Court are the
self-represented indigent and working poor. Our annual caseload in
Juvenile Court is approaching 500 disputes. (You know how many parties that
amounts to!) Our mission is to provide mediation services regardless of the
ability to pay, but with the precipitous decrease in state support, that
mission has been in jeopardy. Our new Juvenile Judge Tim Irwin has done
everything he can do to support our work doing parenting mediation for
never-married parents who find themselves lining up to file petitions to
create or modify a parenting plan. He recently issued an order requiring
all cases filed in Juvenile Court, even the cases filed by the State for
child support enforcement (a huge docket all by itself), to be counted
toward the "dollar bill" required by Knox County to provide monthly
support, so we hope we'll be able to sustain our work for the Court.
We have also been getting more and more referrals
from local agencies and nonprofits, as well as calls from people who want a
civilized and cost-effective way to resolve disputes without the starting
point being a legal filing; they are able to pay our sliding scale rate
calculated on family size and income. This program is part of CMC's
historical fifteen year "niche" to provide mediation services across income
lines.
Our General Sessions Mediation Program is
so popular, we need more volunteer mediators to participate.
Sessions judges, dealing with an ever-increasing docket and many
self-represented parties, are happy when parties can resolve their disputes
themselves "day of court" and announce the results. We will be working
with Becky Jacobs and the Mediation Clinic at UT College of Law to train law
student mediators and will be recruiting and training experienced Rule 31
Civil mediators to volunteer to co-mediate civil cases. Its a great way for
mediators to gain valuable experiences while helping parties solve their own
disputes and alleviating the Court's heavy docket. Needless to say, an
essential component to all the success this program has enjoyed is the
invaluable "Mr. Mediation",Bob Swan, the judicial clerk and administrator for Knox County General
Sessions Court, and the Director of its Mediation Program.
CMC is a charter member of our new
22 member state-wide mediation coalition, Tennessee Coalition for Mediation
Awareness---click
here to see our press release proclaiming Mediation Day in Tennessee.
Our own Knox County Mayor Ragsdale and
Knoxville
Mayor Bill Haslam declared Mediation Day as well.
Click here to see the list of 22 Coalition
members! In 2007, the Coalition will be focusing on Peer Mediation
and Safe Schools issues, working on creating momentum for such programs
through the schools, local bar associations and universities.
CMC also wants to make peer mediation and
conflict resolution training in our schools a priority this year. We
will be looking for members of our mediation community to serve on our
CMC Peer
Mediation Advisory Committee, so if you're interested, please call or email
and let us know.
I've also been busy getting our website in order and haven't
had time to put out a newsletter this fall. Please check out how we're
coming along at www.2mediate.org
Here are some highlights:
Volunteers
can now
apply online for our mediation
training, both basic training and our General Sessions Civil training.
In the future, we hope do have some online training modules available. New
volunteers can also read an
FAQ about
what it takes to become a CMC community mediator. You also can get to
know our mediators,
staff, and
board.
We
now have ways for clients to
pay online and for potential Santa Clauses to
donate
online! You can even
shop
online, and through our partnership with Amazon.com, 5-10% of the
proceeds come back to us!
We
have
social services resources
listed online for clients and mediators to use in mediations, and we are
beginning to collect mediation links of all kinds, including legal
information links.
We
are beginning to collect
mediation
stories from each other, edited in the interest of protecting
confidentiality, so that we may begin to learn from one another's
experience.
Soon, we will have an interactive
"mediators only" section of our website so that we can schedule easier with
our volunteers. It will be password protected, and will include a
real-time "talk box" for immediate responses to questions.
As many of you already know, who do family and juvenile mediations at our
"double-wide trailer" annex at Juvenile Court, each of our three mediation
rooms is now equipped with a computer with wireless connections to the
internet and to our office printers. When all the connections work,
mediators have been able to use the AOC-provided fill-in Word forms for parenting
plan orders and MDAs, filling them out during the mediation and then printing them for
signatures. In the near future, we plan to have a lobby computer set
up for clients to use so that they can explore our website and mediation
links, pay online, and watch orientation DVDs while waiting for mediation to
begin.
So stay tuned to the Neutral Zone and
become aware of all the possibilities for serving our community and learning
the fine art of mediation at the same time! We really need your
enthusiasm and participation (as well as your donations!).
We have quite a few heroes to thank this month. As many of you
know, we have been sending out letters and "calling all cars" to
support CMC financially and with volunteer assistance. Many of
you have responded, as you always do! Many have come forward
for the first time. One wonderful attorney, an elder statesman
and Rule 31 civil mediator in our legal community, called and said,
"I've gotten a letter from someone on your board asking for a
donation, but I've never heard of CMC. Tell me about what you
do." Needless to say, I loved receiving that call and
responding to his questions. He not only made a donation, but
also volunteered for our January General Sessions Civil Mediation
Training especially designed for busy Rule 31 mediators who would
like to volunteer in Sessions Court on weekdays.
Please join me in thanking the following donors
who gave so generously in November.
When you see them out and about this season, give them a big smile
(or hug!) and show them how grateful we are for their support.
Lucinda Albiston, Esq.
Robert Campbell, Esq.
Hon. Richard Baumgartner
Pamela Brown
Luis Bustamante, Esq.
Butler, Vines, & Babb Law Firm
Peggy Comstock, Esq.
James Kelly Giffen, Esq.
Paul Hogan, Esq.
Marsha Hupfel
Jim Johnson
Steven Johnson, Esq.
Donelson Leake, Esq.
James LeFevor, Esq.
Sherry Mahar, Esq.
Janet McMullen
Betsy Meadows, Esq.
Marcie Meldahl
Emil Muly
R. Franklin Norton, Esq.
J. Gregory O'Connor, Esq.
Wanda Olson
Barbara Pelot, City Council
Cecilia Petersen, Esq.
Dale Robinson
Virginia Schwamm, Esq.
Schwamm, Albiston & Smith Law Firm
Donna Smith, Esq.
Hon. Bill Swann
Dudley Taylor, Esq.
Bill Vines, Esq.
Dick Zivi
has been associated with CMC for many years, although she is
not a mediator. She has chosen to give of her time and
energy by serving on the Board and for the past two years on
the Executive Committee as an At-large member. Ms.
Goff is one of our favorite people in the world; with her
instinctive business acumen she routinely helps us balance our wish to
do good with our need to be sustainable so that we can
continue to do good!
Amy is a native Knoxvillian who attended
Farragut
High School and then got her BS in Nutrition and her MS
in Food Systems Administration at the
University of Tennessee.
She worked hands-on at Kroger during her schools years and
for awhile afterward. She worked for Food Lion for 16
years, beginning in 1986, filling various positions in
locations across the Southeast region. She "retired"
in 2002 and began to volunteer at
SCORE (Service
Corps of Retired Executives), and at CMC. She
began her second career by opening
Events@Sherlake
in 2005. And she has the most creative Christmas
decorations I've seen this year!
Every one of our
current Board members have
given their all this year, and have agreed to stay on for
next year's term. We will also be looking to add new
board members, so if you would like to serve in that
capacity, please let us know, and we can speak to you about
the commitment and level of participation the Board expects.
This month, in the holiday spirit of giving, I am passing along this
wonderful meditation on mediation, from one of my favorite online
publications, The School Mediator.
Peer mediation is not so different at all from "regular" mediation, and
these observations rang very, very true to me:
This morning, as is my habit, I sang a little melody of my own creation
while I got ready for work.
A few minutes later I noticed that Ruby, my very musical six-year-old, was
passionately singing a variation on the same theme.
When I joined her in singing, Ruby told me to stop (as is her
habit). She said that she wanted to sing her song by herself.
Apparently, Ruby wasn't aware that I had influenced her to sing that
particular tune.
Over the past few months, I have come to appreciate that we do this all the
time: Mediators influence parties, profoundly and often without intention,
to make specific choices or behave in particular ways.
Not long ago, I would have found this notion heretical.
I understood the role of the mediator to be more limited: that is, to help
parties understand themselves and if they chose, each other, better; and to
assist parties in deciding, "on their own," how they wanted to move
forward.
If anything, I prided myself on my ability to refrain from
persuading.
Yet influence and persuasion have been on my mind a great deal this Fall.
The first
two issues of this year's
newsletters, for instance, have focused on intake interviews, an exercise in
persuasion if ever there was one.
More recently, I picked up Malcolm Gladwell's popular book
The Tipping Point.
In his effort to explore why some people are unusually persuasive, Gladwell
describes research that demonstrates the subtle nature of influence.
In one study, conducted just prior to the 1984 US presidential election,
subjects were asked to rate the emotional content of television news
anchors' facial expressions. Research subjects watched 2.5 second videotaped
segments of the anchors introducing stories about the two presidential
candidates. All reference to the candidates were deleted, the sound was off,
and the subjects had no knowledge of what the anchors were discussing.
The subjects' ratings revealed a marked bias on the part of one of the three
anchors (Peter Jennings of ABC News) for one of the candidates (Ronald
Reagan). But astonishingly, researchers went on to find that television
viewers who had watched Peter Jennings were more likely to vote for Reagan
than voters who watched the other two anchors. Accounting for other factors
(that Reagan supporters might have chosen to watch Jennings because
of his bias, for instance), the research suggested that this barely
perceptible aspect of Jennings' behavior influenced the way people voted.
Gladwell cites this and other studies to stress that when it comes to
influence and persuasion, not only can very "little" things make a big
difference, but the people affected are often unaware that they are being
influenced.
Furthermore, when we communicate, it is likely impossible to not
influence one another.
Consider Boston College professor William
Condon's close study of
videotaped conversations. Viewing the conversations in 1/24 of a second
intervals revealed what he called a "synchrony" between a listener's body
and a speaker's voice.
Unconsciously, the muscles in a listener's head, hands, shoulders and
arms respond and become synchronized with the speaker's words. When I say
something, within milliseconds, your body reacts.
Furthermore, volume, pitch, the number of speech sounds per second, even the
length of pauses between utterances becomes harmonized.
Interpersonal communication, it turns out, is a far more intricate process
than many of us think. It is like a dance, with each party unconsciously and
instantly responding to the other's lead.
Is there any doubt that this form of persuasion is going on during
mediation?
ท When mediators make their opening remarks in a calm and thoughtful tone,
they influence parties to be similarly calm and measured.
ท When mediators listen empathetically and without judgment to one party's
story, they influence other parties to do the same.
ท When a party expresses his desire to "run out the door rather than talk
about this stupid sh#&!," the displeasure that registers upon even the most
skilled mediator's face will surely influence that party's decision to stay
or leave.
We have no choice but to embrace the fact: Everyone--mediators included--has
undeniable and likely inescapable persuasive powers.
Mediators certainly don't force parties to make choices; we even strive to
withhold our opinions.
But in significant ways, parties sing our song.
~
Peer Mediation Insights, from the desk of Richard Cohen, The School
Mediator, Vol. VI, 11/06.
Also for your winter holiday exploration (besides exploring
our website):
By Don K. Ferguson
(CMC volunteer mediator in Knox County General Sessions Court and author of
the "Grammar Gremlins" column that appears in The Knoxville News-Sentinel
every Sunday.)
felony and misdemeanor
The difference between a felony and a misdemeanor is determined solely by
the possible punishments. In most states, a felony is punishable by death or
by imprisonment for a year or more, while a misdemeanor is any crime with a
lesser punishment.
--A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage.
Fun with
Wikipedia
Language!
(the free encyclopedia anyone can edit...)
Alternative Dispute Resolution
This page is in need of attention from an expert!
In the Wikipedia system, users edit the pages, with some sort of oversight
system...
Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.
-- Soren Kierkegaard
Tennessee's ADR Commission Issues it's
First Opinion: Rule 31 Mediator's Listing is Suspended
Yes,
that's right! One mediator down...in Dyersburg!
Read the full decision
here.
A
complaint was made about a Rule 31 family mediator
(an non-attorney mediator) by the attorney representing one of the parties in a divorce
proceeding. It seems that the mediation was not
successful---of course, that's how the disagreeable seeds of a
complaint begin to take root! The mediator terminated
the mediation and wrote his Final Report to the judge who had
referred the case. So far, so good.
The
mediator went one step too far, though, by providing some
explanation to the judge about WHY the parties reached
impasse. He wrote in his report, I experienced some
problems in this mediation which I feel the court should be
aware of It is my opinion that [one party] cooperated and acted in
good faith. Their settlement offer in light of the evidence
presented to me was reasonable. Lastly, I found that the
[other party] did
not mediate in good faith.
In
other words, it sounds for all the world like one of the
parties agreed with the mediator and one didn't!
The
Commission cited to Rule 31(10)(d), saying: "This section of
the Rule specifically provides that a Rule 31 Neutral shall
'Preserve and maintain the confidentiality of all information
obtained during Rule 31 ADR Proceedings and shall not divulge
information obtained by them during the course of Rule 31 ADR
Proceedings without the consent of the parties, except as
otherwise may be required by law.' The Rule does not
permit the mediator to express his/her thoughts to the court
or anyone else, as to whether parties have mediated in good or
bad faith or allow the mediator to tell anyone what was said
in the mediation."
That
the mediator wrote what he did in his Final Report to the
court constituted a violation of Rule 31(5)(a), which
describes the only things that a mediator can tell a judge
about a mediation: (i) whether both parties appeared and
participated in the Rule 31 ADR Proceeding; (ii) whether the
case was completely or partially settled; and (iii) whether
the Rule Neutral or Rule 31 Neutrals request that the costs of
the neutral services be charged as court costs. The
Commission found that the Rule does not permit the mediator to
tell anything more. In that regard, it was also held
that the mediator violated section 10(d) of the Rule, on
confidentiality of the mediation, to [p]reserve and
maintain the confidentiality of all information obtained
during Rule 31 ADR Proceedings and shall not divulge
information obtained by them during the course of Rule 31 ADR
Proceedings without the consent of the parties, except as
otherwise may be required by law.
We
know from an earlier case,
McMahan v. McMahan, a mediator
can be asked, at least by a judge, to testify about the
actions of a party
to mediation, not their words. In the McMahan case, the mediator was asked whether
or not the wife in a divorce mediation, herself a mediator,
had the capacity to mediate---whether she was in her "right
mind" or was too ill to mediate. The mediator
answered only to the effect that the wife had appeared to be
lucid and was able to sign the agreement to mediate.
In
the ADRC case here, the mediator was suspended because he expressed, in
essence, the content of the mediation. To say that
someone did not mediate in good faith, while the other made a
reasonable offer, is to say too much about the thoughts and
feelings of the parties and to possibly influence the tribunal
about the ongoing dispute.
Procedurally in this matter, the complaint was filed against
the mediator in 12/05** a year after the mediation had
occurred. A hearing before the ADR Commission Grievance
Committee in 3/06, with Response Statements by the Complainant
and Mediator filed in 5/06. Their attorneys then filed briefs
in 9/06, and the full ADR Commission issued its written
opinion (three and a half pages) in 11/06.
**Because the title of the ADR Commission opinion is DECISION
OF ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION COMMISSION ON GRIEVANCE
FILED JANUARY 3, 2006, and the complaint was dated 12/29/05,
I'm assuming that the complaint/grievance is considered filed
when received by the Commission.
:: What trial
lawyers want from mediators (from New Zealand, but could've been
a Knoxville lawyer with a Aussie accent!) Turn up your computer
volume--this lawyer's voice is at a rather low register.
::
Current (Summer 2006) and
past issues of the Tennessee ADR Newsletters. Published online by
the AOC, very good articles and resources are contained in each issue.
Also, if you're a Rule 31 mediator and are NOT getting a copy of the
Tennessee Bar Association ADR Section newsletter, please let Marnie Huff,
the new section chair, know that. Email her at
marniehuff@bellsouth.net
::JAMS is a for-profit mediation center
and has quite a few online resources for mediators and arbitrators to
explore: international, governmental, mass torts and class action,
bankruptcy, are just a few of their areas of ADR expertise. Here is a
pdf document entitled
JAMS Guide to Dispute Resolution Clauses for Commercial Contracts.
:: Learn more about the
Transformative Mediation
framework from the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation.
::
4 in 10 U.S. Children Born in 2005 Were Out of Wedlock, But The Teen
Birthrate DroppedBirths among single mothers rose most
dramatically among women in their 20s. The Teen birth rate
actually dropped in 2005 to its lowest level on record. The
overall rise reflects the growing number of people who are putting off
marriage or living together without getting married.
::
Assessing Parent Education Programs for Families Involved with Child Welfare
Services: Evidence and Implications Little is known about the
effectiveness of parent education programs offered at various
stages of the child welfare continuum. This review includes outcome
data generated from 70 of the most rigorously evaluated parenting education
programs with families determined to be at-risk of child
maltreatment and/or abusive or neglectful. Downloadable 56 page pdf file.
::
Does a Sperm Donor Have Parental Rights? The Kansas Supreme Court will hear a case
challenging the constitutionality of a 1994 Kansas law which says a sperm
donor has no parental rights unless he has a written agreement with the
mother. The court will hear arguments December 4, 2006 and
should rule in February, 2007.
::
For a peek into the court room, go to The
Trial Lawyers Resource Center, a good blog site. Look especially
at the references to mediation and settlement. (Thanks to one of my
favorite blogs for the reference,
Mediatorblahblah.
Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the
powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.
Winter Holiday Party
12/15
the
massive amount of work they've done this year! (Isn't it
scary to see the word "winter" 
eet
Our Board
