Victoria Pynchon - Success as a Mediator for Dummies

Success as a Mediator For Dummies

by Victoria Pynchon and Joe Kraynak

Success as a Mediator For Dummies

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Copyright 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2012934423

ISBN 978-1-118-07862-4 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-20641-6 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-20642-3 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-20643-0 (ebk)

Manufactured in the United States of America

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About the Authors

Victoria Pynchon is a mediator, author, speaker, negotiation trainer, consultant, and attorney with 25 years of experience in commercial litigation practice. Shes the co-founder of She Negotiates Training and Consulting with her business partner, Lisa Gates. A graduate of the University of California, San Diego, Victoria received her Juris Doctor degree from UC Davis School of Law (King Hall) and her Master of Laws degree in dispute resolution from the internationally acclaimed Straus Institute at the Pepperdine University School of Law.

Since earning her LL.M, she has served the mediation community as a member of the California State Bars Standing Committee on Alternative Dispute Resolution, as a board member of the Southern California Mediation Association, as chair of the ADR Committee of the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles, and as chair of the Federal Bar Associations ADR Section.

Currently, she mediates and arbitrates complex commercial disputes with ADR Services, Inc., in Century City and the American Arbitration Association in downtown Los Angeles. She continues to serve as a Party Select Panel Mediator for the Los Angeles Superior Court and as a settlement officer with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Victoria has taught deposition and trial practice for the National Institute of Trial Advocacy for more than a dozen years, business law to undergraduates at California State University at Northridge, and Employment ADR at the Straus Institute. She is a frequent speaker and lecturer at law firms, nonprofit organizations, universities, and in-house legal departments.

Victoria is also a prolific writer and author of The Grownups ABCs of Conflict Resolution. She writes the thrice-weekly She Negotiates blog at ForbesWoman and is a contributor to Forbess On the Docket legal blog.

Joe Kraynak is a professional writer who specializes in teaming up with experts in various fields to produce top-notch trade publications. Joe has coauthored numerous For Dummies titles, including Flipping Houses For Dummies, Bipolar Disorder For Dummies, and Food Allergies For Dummies. For more about Joe, visit JoeKraynak.com.

Dedication

To my husband, Stephen N. Goldberg.

Authors Acknowledgments

Thanks to our agent, Susan Lee Cohen of the Riverside Literary Agency, and to acquisitions editor Tracy Boggier and assistant editor David Lutton of Wiley, who ironed out all the preliminary details to make this book possible.

Heike Baird, our project editor, deserves a loud cheer for serving as a gifted and patient collaborator and editor shuffling chapters back and forth, shepherding the text and graphics through production, making sure any technical issues were properly resolved, and serving as the unofficial quality control manager. Copy editor Todd Lothery earns the editor of the year award for ferreting out our typos, misspellings, grammatical errors, and other language foe paws (or is it faux pas?), in addition to assisting Heike as reader advocate. We also tip our hat to the production crew for doing such an outstanding job of transforming our text and graphics into such an attractive book.

This book could not have been written without the help of my many ADR teachers, mentors, and sponsors, most particularly attorney, mediator, author, and founder of Mediators Beyond Borders, Ken Cloke; University of Missouri School of Law Professor Richard Reuben; the co-directors of the Straus Institute, Peter Robinson and Tom Stipanowich; Pepperdine University School of Law Negotiation Professor Maureen Weston; and Straus Institute Adjunct Professor, Rev. Brian Cox, author of Faith-Based Reconciliation: A Moral Vision That Transforms People and Societies.

The mediation bloggers from whom I learned so much also deserve mention, particularly those who continue to inform my practice, most particularly Diane Levin of The Mediation Channel, Tammy Lenski of Conflict Zen and Making Mediation Your Day Job, John DeGroote of Settlement Perspectives, Stephanie West Allen of Idealawg and Brains on Purpose, and New York City detective and master mediator Jeff Thompson, who blogs at Enjoy Mediation and the ADRHub.