As readers may already know, last week, President Barack Obama signed into law the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 (a.k.a. the “Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act”). The act, among other things, would give the SEC the power to ban or limit mandatory arbitration in certain agreements. House Versions: H.R. 4173 and Status; Senate Versions: S.3217 and Status. The final version is here. Following are some pro

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By Peter S. Vogel Special Masters can help Judges and parties in eDiscovery disputes and also reduce the cost of litigation. Also managing eDiscovery can be improved by using eMediators who can help simply eDiscovery disputes and reduce motion practice. My recent article in the Texas Lawyer discusses some of the benefits of eMediation and Special Masters in eDiscovery. Over the past 20 years I have served as a Mediator and Special Master in compu

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By Holly Hayes In May, we wrote about Dr. Donde Plowman’s presentation in Austin where she spoke about the opportunity leaders have to create organizations where innovation can occur. One aspect of innovation in organizations, she believes, is the presence of conflict. So often, leaders are responsible for reducing conflict, but Dr. Plowman argues, conflict often results in innovation. She states, perhaps conflict in the organization means

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By Kent B. Scott and Cody W. Wilson The success of mediation is mainly determined by the parties. It is their process and they are in control of the ultimate result. While there is no guarantee that any mediation will succeed, there are some common elements found in successful mediations: The mediator selected by the parties had the skills, knowledge and style (i.e., evaluative or facilitative) that fit the dispute and personalities involved in t

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Peter S. Vogel, trial partner at Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP and contributor of this blog will host “Social Media: eMail, SPAM, Spyware, and Phishing,” a State Bar of Texas Webcast on Wednesday, July 28th 12:30-1:30pm CST. DESCRIPTION: The Internet has transformed communications as evidenced by the current estimate that over 210 billion emails are sent daily, 50 million tweets are sent daily, and over 1.5 trillion text messages were sent

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By William G. Whitehill In In re Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. and Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner; Smith Incorporated, __ S.W.3d __ (June 25, 2010 slip op.), the Texas Supreme Court conditionally granted mandamus relief in favor of Merrill Lynch, staying litigation against it by a non-signatory company when that company’s sister company that was a signatory to an arbitration agreement was also asserting identical claims that were potentiall

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By U.S. District Judge W. Royal Furgeson, Jr. Dear Friends: I have read with interest “Why Isn’t ADR More Popular? A Report from Harvard.” From my perspective as a judge, I would recommend that lawyers be very careful about inserting mandatory arbitration language into their client’s contracts. First, I see a great deal of buyer’s remorse in cases where there is a mandatory arbitration clause that leaves a party no c

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The article below was published this week on the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School website. Many scholars have noted that the business community would greatly benefit from third-party dispute resolution services. JThe authors note that disputants use arbitration and mediation less frequently than their preferences on surveys would predict and than rational parties would.

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By Kent B. Scott and Cody W. Wilson Every mediation is unique. The mediator will work with the parties and counsel to devise the appropriate format for the mediation. In general, however, mediation has four stages: Opening joint session The mediation usually begins with a joint session. At this session, the parties will be seated and the mediator will introduce everyone to each other. The mediator will also set out some rules of appropriate condu

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Here is an interesting article from the Associated Press: By MICHAEL J. CRUMB, Associated Press Writer Tue Jul 6, 6:17 pm ET DES MOINES, Iowa – Attorneys representing 23 states involved in a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft Corp. have filed a lawsuit over attorney fees against the Iowa lawyer who spearheaded a $179.5 million settlement with the software company. Roxanne Conlin of Des Moines negotiated the 2007 settlement that included $75 m

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