Author Archives: abfifer

Baseball Peacemakers

June 7, 2010 – 3:52 pm

I am not a sports fan, but sometimes the sports world offers illustrations related to peacemaking. Usually it’s a bad apology—athletes provide a steady stream of them—, but last week, baseball offered us an example of something good: apology and forgiveness done well. Armando Gallaraga, who plays for the Detroit Tigers, was “already celebrating” when […]

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Peacemaking in Hong Kong

June 1, 2010 – 10:52 am

I had the privilege a couple weeks ago to teach peacemaking to a group of believers in Hong Kong, through Peacemaker Ministries. Like all Christians, they struggle with conflict, including conflict with one another. There were people from both Western and Eastern cultures in our training, and some aspects of conflict resolution seem to be […]

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Where’s the Line?

April 20, 2010 – 10:20 am

Where’s the line between evaluative mediation–which is still a type of mediation–and non-binding arbitration, which is no longer mediation, but rather a type of arbitation? If, at the end of a long day of mediation, the mediator offers to come up with a number which the parties can accept or reject, has the mediator now crossed […]

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Waive party opening statements? Never!

March 1, 2010 – 3:31 pm

Here’s a reason why to not allow parties to waive their opening statements: I did a mediation recently involving a partnership breakup. In pre-mediation, it appeared that the issues would concern a buy-out of the departing partner, as well as a non-compete. But in the mediation, when it was the plaintiff’s turn to give his […]

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