We are coming up to International Mediation Awareness Week (IMAW) 2026, which runs from Monday, 9 November to Friday, 13 November 2026. The idea is to highlight how mediation resolves disputes without going to court. Having a public awareness week is useful, but it’s not enough in itself to deal with the problem. Here are
Why Aren’t More People Using Mediation? Read More »
Is shuttle becoming the new norm for mediation? It seems to becoming more frequent, and more often the starting assumption. This post asks why, and what shuttle costs in different kinds of matters. What we are talking about Shuttle mediation keeps the parties apart for the whole process. The mediator moves between rooms carrying information,
Shuttle Mediation – Can We Have Mediation Without Dialogue? Read More »
You’ve received a referral from a workplace relating to performance, misconduct, bullying, or a disputed adjustment. Someone in the organisation will tell you the problem came out of nowhere. The employee was fine for six years, and then suddenly they were not coping. However, the reality is usually something that has accumulated over time and
Conflict Involving Neurodivergent Employees: The Visibility Loop Read More »
I often say to colleagues that confidentiality in mediation is a bit of a myth. I don’t mean we should stop offering it. I mean that the way we usually describe it promises clients something we can’t actually deliver. Here is the kind of situation I have in mind. A client makes a complaint about
Confidentiality in Mediation: Are We Promising Something That Doesn’t Exist? Read More »
Prepared by The Conflict Management Academy, August 2026 Why finance is one of the biggest employers of dispute resolution skills in Australia If you have studied finance, you may not realise that the financial services industry is legally required to run dispute resolution systems, and that it employs thousands of people to do so. Two
There is a new guide out called Prompt Engineering for Mediators. The Singapore Mediation Centre wrote it with the Singapore Academy of Law and Microsoft. It is free. At 23 pages, it takes half an hour to read. It is one of the first practical AI guides written for mediators rather than for lawyers, and
A New AI Guide Written for Mediators, Not Lawyers Read More »
You meet two separated parents. Each describes a child you would struggle to recognise as the same person. One parent talks about a calm, capable, easy kid who never gives them any trouble. The other describes daily meltdowns, exhaustion, and a child barely holding together by the end of the afternoon. Both are telling the
When a Child Masks With One Parent and Melts Down With the Other Read More »
You are setting up a workplace mediation. The referrer, often someone from HR, says they want a copy of any written agreement the parties reach. It sounds like a routine request, but it changes the process in ways the referrer may not have thought through, and how you respond shapes both the parties’ experience and
When the Referrer Wants a Copy of the Agreement Read More »
Most jobs come with two descriptions. The one that gets written down is about outcomes: deliver this analysis, manage this caseload, draft these contracts, service these clients, hit these targets. That description ends up in the position description, the contract, the performance review. The other one isn’t written anywhere. Be approachable in the kitchen. Read
The Job Description and the Unwritten One Read More »
The best interests of the child is the principle Australian family dispute resolution is built around. It’s the test parenting arrangements have to satisfy and the standard we keep coming back to in every matter involving kids. The Family Law Act s 60CC factors to consider when determining what parenting arrangements are in the child’s
The “Best Interests” of the Neurodivergent Child Read More »