Three Articles that Explore Pre-dispute Techniques in Depth

Now that the basic principles of the dispute prevention and resolution field have been described, it’s useful to flesh out more details about the art and practice of using prevention techniques to create and strengthen business relationships. Three articles linked below provide much food for thought: First, “Thinking Ahead,” a chapter from the “Negotiator’s Desk … Read more

Sir Richard Susskind’s Dispute Prevention Wisdom

Sir Richard Susskind is a British law professor, author, speaker, and advisor to businesses and governments.  He has studied and written extensively about a wide variety of subjects. In his 2008 book, “The End of Lawyers?”, he addressed the subject of lawyer-client relations, and particularly the “irrational” failure of the business and legal worlds to … Read more

The Most Powerful Practical Case That Has Yet Been Made for Using Dispute Prevention

Noah Hanft, who now serves as an arbitrator, mediator, consultant and executive coach, had distinguished himself as a practicing lawyer and General Counsel of Mastercard during the earlier phases of his career.  In common with the majority of practicing lawyers, inside corporate counsel, and business leaders of his generation, during those phases of his career … Read more

Global Pound Conference Voting Results Confirm Preferences for Pre-dispute and Pre-escalation Processes to Prevent Disputes

The historic Global Pound Conferences in 2016 and 2017 evaluated all forms of dispute prevention and resolution in a worldwide effort, forty years after the first Pound Conference, to find ways to improve the future of dispute resolution.  In the final voting by thousands of delegates to 29 conferences held worldwide, In answer to the … Read more

Forbes Magazine Reports on the Advantages of Standing Neutrals

In an article written by Kate Vitasek, a business school professor, business consultant, and prolific author, Forbes Magazine has reported on how successful Standing Neutrals can be in preserving supplier relationships, especially during pandemic stresses.  The Forbes article and podcast linked below explain in detail how Standing Neutrals work, and also Jim Groton’s pioneering work … Read more

Thoughts on Recent Evolutionary Changes in the Disputes Field, and the Resistance that Some of These Changes Have Experienced

It’s interesting to observe the development of various “movements” within the disputes field during the past generation, and the extent to which they have experienced resistance. The first modern dispute resolution movement: From litigation to arbitration and mediation and other forms of ADR. Professor Julie MacFarlane in her book “The New Lawyer: How Settlement Is … Read more

Language and expressions that can be used to encourage the practice of anticipation and prevention

Human beings have long been using anticipation and prevention practices, both defensively as protection, and proactively as a way to make life easier for themselves. Over time, much “prevention lore” has been passed on from generation to generation, in both written and oral form. Much of it is obvious, much of it is redundant, but … Read more

HELP WANTED: New Research

As a by-product of work on CPR’s Prevention Initiative, the members of CPR’s Prevention Exploratory Research Team identified many questions in the prevention field which deserve further research. The dispute resolution world and the Global Pound Conferences would benefit from further research into issues involving the prevention, control, de-escalation and “real time” resolution of disputes. … Read more