Join us for a series of engaging and energizing presentations to enhance your mediation advocacy skills.  We'll start with a deep dive into the role emotions play in dispute resolution and will translate the latest neuroscience into actionable skills for mediators and advocates.  Then, we'll look at how FBI hostage negotiators use tactical empathy and stoicism to engage with and deescalate conflict and how you can use these tools in your practice.  Our morning will close with an interactive session for all participants.   Whether you are a neutral or an advocate, a seasoned litigator or new to mediation advocacy, you will leave this session ready to put these new practical skills to use in your next mediation.  

Understanding Mediation As An Emotional Process - Douglas E. Noll, JD, MA 

This presentation will portray mediation and the negotiations within mediation as a purely emotional process, with very little logic or reasoning involved in the decision-making process. Common lawyer and client behaviors will be evaluated from an emotional analytic perspective. Affect labeling will be introduced as the mediator’s prime intervention. Brain scanning studies show that affect labeling, as opposed to active listening or non-violent communication techniques, diminishes the amygdala and other limbic regions associated with emotions while simultaneously activating the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. The implications of these findings in mediation will be distilled into practical, actionable skills that can transform the mediation process.

FBI Hostage Negotiation Skills for Litigators in Mediation - Joseph Berriman, Professor of Practice, The University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law

This presentation will discuss the FBI's philosophy on negotiation, with a focus on stoicism and tactical empathy. Specific and specialized communication skills will be reviewed to de-escalate crisis, resolve conflict, and lead to influence. The effectiveness of the skills discussed in this presentation are not limited to hostage negotiations, but also in settlement negotiations with opposing counsel, in mediations with litigating parties, in managing your own clients, and even with friends and family. The interpersonal communication skills discussed in this training are universal. Some of the learning objectives include: 

•     Identity the four primary qualities of "Tactical Empathy."
•     Discover how "Stoicism" can improve your ability to resolve conflict and control crisis.
•     Discuss the "Behavioral Change Stairway" used by the FBI's negotiators to build trust and rapport.
•     Understand how "Emotional Granularity" can be used as a shortcut to rapport building and influence when time matters. 
•     Learn how to use specialized communication techniques to de-escalate high emotionality in your counterpart while increasing rationality.

Moderator: Alexis Pheiffer, Mediator & Managing Partner, Law Office of Alexis Pheiffer