programs
International Competition for Online Dispute Resolution (ICODR 2006)
Mediation Competition Rules
A. Purpose
The competition enhances student understanding of Online Dispute Resolution. Students will experience every aspect of mediation. Students may participate as advocates or as mediators. Gold, Silver and Bronze Medals will be granted based on evaluations by distinguished professionals as to (1) the most effective advocate teams and (2) the most effective mediator.
B. Participants
Law students from law schools around the world are invited to participate.
C. Teams
Schools are encouraged to field both a (1) team of advocates and (2) mediator(s).
1. Advocates
Each school is requested to field a team of at least two persons. During the competition each team will be represented by one “advocate” entity. The advocate team will be considered to be in the role of the legal representative of the client in the problem.
Teams will be paired by random selection. Each team will be assigned a letter (e.g. Team A) and will be expected to refer to itself in that manner. No evaluator, other team, or mediator can ask a team to provide the name of its school.
2. Mediators
Each school is requested to field at least one person and up to two persons to serve as mediator. One person serving as mediator will be foreseen for each mediation.
The mediator will be drawn at random from the pool of candidates. Insofar as possible, the mediator in a given mediation will not be from the schools of either of the parties to the mediation. Each mediator will be assigned a name (e.g. Mediator A) and will be expected to refer to itself by that name. No evaluator or team can ask a mediator to provide the name of his/her school.
D. Coaches
Our desire is that the contacts at each school be the coach for the school’s advocate team and mediator(s). The coach would assist the preparation for the online mediation. We would ask coaches to provide the same level of assistance as they provide in offline competitions of this nature. This preparation would include working on the Alternative Dispute Resolution issues, particularly the mediation issues, as well as familiarizing the students with the selected technology.
In order to ensure complete fairness and neutrality, organizers of the competition who are listed as participants will limit their roles to administrative organization of their respective teams.
During the competition, it is desirable that the coach observe the work of the team either in the physical room or in observing the teams online. The hope is that the coach can watch carefully the experience to help in the evaluation of the competition.
E. Sequence of the Mediation
The competition is envisaged as running in two rounds in February 2006 (Round One: February 6-13; Round Two: February 16-23).
The schedule would be (all times expressed in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)):
September – November 2004 : Designation of Teams and Mediators for participating schools
December 2006 – Allocation of Teams and Mediators
January 10, 2006 - Provision of fact patterns to teams
Mediation Round One: February 6-13.
Self Evaluation Round One: February 14
Mediation Round Two: February 16-23
Self-Evaluation Round Two: February 24
February 24-April 15: Evaluators made up of distinguished practitioners and academics in the field of international ADR may watch the activities of the student advocates and mediators during the course of the mediations and will finalize their evaluations during this period.
May 15: Announcement of the most effective advocates and most effective mediators as determined by the evaluators.
F. Timekeeping
Responsibility rests with the student participants for timekeeping.
G. Supplemental Materials
Supplemental materials may be used by the participants. They should be posted at the documents section of the mediation room. No documents should be added to the mediation room after the end of the mediation period. No new documents should be added to the comments made during the self-critique.
H. Expectation of how each round should proceed
A s soon as practicable after the beginning of each round, each team and the mediator should enter into the negotiation room and send a message in the joint meeting room advising that “We are Team/Mediator (Letter) and are ready to mediate.”
In the event no information is heard from a team after the first 24 hours, effort will be made to contact them to make sure there is no problem of access. If a mediator fails to participate, then the advocate teams will be declared winner’s ex aequo et bono of their mediation but will not be eligible for any medals. If a team fails to participate, then the other team will be declared the default winner of that round and the mediator will be credited for being prepared to participate.
The teams and the mediator are to mediate during the two periods.
Each team and the mediator are free to determine how they wish to conduct themselves in the round. Breaks are permitted as each team desires.
Directly after the end of the round or completion of the mediation (whichever comes first), each team and the mediator are to enter into their respective private caucus room and provide a self-analysis answering the following five questions:
(1) What was your strategy and how well did you implement it?
(2) What would you do the same and what would you do differently if you were in this type of mediation in the future?
(3) What impact did the technology have on your mediating approach?
(4) What did you learn from this experience?
(5) What would you wish others to know about this type of experience?
I. Evaluators
Evaluators are provided by the Center for Information Technology and Dispute Resolution (CITDR) of the University of Massachusetts.
Evaluators will not be from any school in the competition. Evaluators will have access to a webboard provided by CITDR in which they may wish to discuss their experience evaluating the competition.
J. Scoring
Evaluators will observe teams in real time and/or through review of the mediation text.
1. Evaluation of Advocate teams
Evaluation criteria forms will be used to rate each advocate team from 1 to 7 on 9 criteria scales. The nine scales are as follows:
I. Mediation Planning. How well prepared did this team appear to be?
II. Flexibility in deviating from plans or adapting strategy. How flexible did this team appear to be in adapting its strategy in reaction to the other team?
III. Outcome of mediation. Regardless of whether agreement was reached, how well did this team serve the client’s goals?
IV. Relationship between the mediating teams. Did the way this team managed its relationship with the other team and the mediator help or hurt it in achieving its client’s best interests?
V. Mediation Ethics. To what extent did the team observe or violate the ethical requirements of the legal profession?
VI. Use of Technology. How effectively did the team use the technology to advance its client’s goals?
VII. Skill in Expression. In expressing itself, did the team seem hindered or helped by the technology?
VIII. General. Overall how well did the team use online mediation?
IX. Self-Analysis. Based on the team’s self-analysis in its caucus room, how adequately has it learned from the mediation?
The average neutral rating is 4. To get above that rating the team has to do something that makes a significant favorable impact on the evaluator. To get below that rating, the team has to do something that makes a significant unfavorable impact on the evaluator.
2. Evaluation of Mediators
Evaluation criteria forms will be used to rate each mediator from 1 to 7 on 9 criteria scales. The nine scales are as follows:
I. Mediation Planning. How well prepared did this mediator appear to be?
II. Flexibility in deviating from plans or adapting strategy. How flexible did this mediator appear to be in adapting its strategy in reaction to the parties?
III. Outcome of mediation. Regardless of whether agreement was reached, how well did the mediator do in the procedure?
IV. Relationship with the parties. Did the way the mediator managed its relationship with the parties help or hurt it in reaching the result?
V. Mediation Ethics. To what extent did the mediator observe or violate the ethical requirements of mediators and/or the legal profession?
VI. Use of Technology. How effectively did the mediator use the technology to advance their goals for the arbitration?
VII. Skill in Expression. In expressing itself, did the mediator seem hindered or helped by the technology?
VIII. General. Overall how well did the mediator use online mediation?
IX. Self-Analysis. Based on the mediator’s self-analysis in its caucus room, how adequately has it learned from the mediation?
The average neutral rating is 4. To get above that rating the mediator has to do something that makes a significant favorable impact on the evaluator. To get below that rating, the mediator has to do something that makes a significant unfavorable impact on the evaluator.
K. Evaluation Standards
The evaluation criteria are attempting to capture various discrete aspects of the mediation process. The evaluators should keep in mind at all times that the student participants come from around the world and from different legal traditions.
The standards are based on the premise that there are many ways to mediate. Mediation as assisted negotiation, competitive/distributional negotiation as well as principled negotiation are types of approaches that are frequently discussed.
Mediation effectiveness here can be demonstrated by the manner the team and the mediator reaches an agreement or, conversely, by the manner in which a team and the mediator decides not to reach an agreement.
Several points that could be considered:
- Is the solution better than the best alternative to a negotiated agreement (with this party or, from the mediator’s perspective, for the parties)?
- To what extent are the interests of the client, the other side, both parties, and other parties met?
- Were the procedural suggestions and choices appropriate?
- Is this the better of several possible options?
- Is the solution reached or last proposed credible for both parties?
- Have the parties and the mediator clearly understood each other?
- Will these parties be able to deal with each other more efficiently in case of any future differences?
- Would this mediator be likely to be reappointed by the parties or a mediation institution?
L. Note Taking
Evaluators may take notes and decide whether to provide them to the participants. A webboard is also available for evaluators to use to discuss the experience after they have completed their evaluation.
M. Independent Decision Making
Each evaluator is to make his/her evaluations independently of the other evaluators. Once the evaluations have been completed, the evaluator may feel free to discuss the competition in the webboard.
N. Reporting the results
The Center for Information Technology and Dispute Resolution will notify each team and post the results.
O. Third parties
Persons other than student participants, coaches, evaluators, or administrators of the competition are permitted to observe the mediations. They may comment on a separate webboard page if they desire.
P. Hypotheticals
T wo hypotheticals will be provided – one for each round.
Q. Controlling Law
The mediation is to be conducted in English.
Unless indicated otherwise in the problem, assume there is no controlling law. All references to names of individuals and organizations set forth in the problem materials are fictitious.
R. Online Dispute Resolution Service Provider for this competition
This year, we are pleased that Thomson West corporation, and eRoom Technology, Inc. are international sponsors and service providers of ICODR 2006. They are providing the West WorkSpace technology platform for the negotiation, mediation, arbitration and litigation competitions.
Details of how to access their site will be made available in due course. Each team and the mediator will be provided opportunities to familiarize themselves with the technology. Each team and the mediator will be provided a specific username and password that will permit access to the mediation room in which the actual competition will be done.
S. Asynchronous mode of communication only
For the competition, we are providing asynchronous (webboard type) modes of communication because of the difficulty of keeping a record of synchronous (chat type) messages.
T. Sponsor of the competition
University of Toledo College of Law and Hamline University School of Law are providing the financial support for the competition.
U. Educational and Promotional Use
A non-exclusive license to use the ICODR 2005 contents for educational and promotional purposes has been granted by the ICODR 2005 organizers to Thomson West.
V. Competition organizers
Benjamin Davis (Associate Professor, University of Toledo, College of Law –ben.davis@utoledo.edu),
Alan Gaitenby (Adjunct Professor and Assistant Director, Center for Information Technology and Dispute Resolution, University of Massachusetts - gaitenby@disputes.net),
Ethan Katsh (Professor and Director, Center for Information Technology and Dispute Resolution, University of Massachusetts - katsh@legal.umass.edu),
David Larson (Professor and Senior Fellow Dispute Resolution Institute, Hamline School of Law – dlarson@gw.hamline.edu), and
Franklin D. Snyder (Professor, Texas Wesleyan University School of Law – fsnyder@law.txwes.edu)
For enquiries about fielding a law school team, being considered to act as an evaluator or being considered to act as a dispute resolution service provider, please contact:
ben.davis@utoledo.edu
