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India Week Two

Sitting at home with a cup of coffee desperately trying to stay awake after arriving back from Delhi at 6.45am this morning. The last week was again full of challenge and interest for the team. This group was particularly enthusiastic about our participative approach, which required us to manage that enthusiasm in a constructive way to ensure that we still got through all of the programme. As always we were flexible with this at times took more time to demonstrate key skills which the group were having difficulty immediately grasping.

The coaching day on the last day again really allowed the group to see a mediation all the way through from start to finish and allowed as to work intensively with them. it was also great fun with lots of laughs at things that were happening.

Thats it for me for India until June when I go back to do a Train the trainers course for Judges and mediators. 

Next trip will be in relation to my visit to Johannesburg for the Tokiso Conference, who have just started a commercial mediation subsidiary and who CEDR are working with closely. More later.......

India week one

Writing this on Sunday after delivering a four day foundation skills course to 30 participants here in Delhi. Training that many was quite a challenge for the three of us especially trying to remember that many names which aren't familiar to us!!!!! The International Centre for ADR (ICADR), which hosted the training is an impressive building from the outside and the participants were mainly senior lawyers with a few other professions as well as a retired judge.

One of the issues which come up here as it did in Pakistan, is how you encourage mediation in a jurisdiction that has no costs sanction at all, and relatively low costs. Therefore defendants have no incentive to settle, rather it encourages them to delay and therefore not to settle.

Out side of work, one of the funniest moments came at the hotel when we were having a drink reviewing the day on Friday , when this woman approached us and very deadpan said " I am the hotel tarot reader, if you want to know your future I am at the desk in the Lobby" she then turned around and walked away. All of us were silent for about 5 seconds processing what we had just heard and then all burst out laughing.......it had been a long day and that just rounded it off nicely!!!!

Had a day off today and was going to go to Agra and the Taj today but would have had to get up at 5am so gave it a miss. Did have a look around old Delhi and now going down to have a swim. Another 4 day course starting tomorrow.

2 weeks in India

Just writing this entry before the taxi arrives to take me to Heathrow. I am leaving today with 2 colleagues for 2 weeks in Delhi to deliver 2 courses in foundation mediation skills training. It is part of a wider project which includes us going back out for an advanced course next month which included assessment for CEDR accreditation. There is also a train the trainer schedule for June sometime.

Parallel to the training work stream is business plan consultancy for ICADR. This work stream is being run by Karl Mackie, CEDR's Chief executive and Graham Massie, a fellow CEDR Director.Time frames for both work stream are tight and must be delivered by June.

Thats all I have time for right now. Next post from Delhi. Never been to India before so looking forward to exploring the Indian culture as well.

James

This phase of the Pakistan Project finished..Dubai here I come!

Writing this at hotel after finishing the peer practice session with mediators and before I leave to go to the airport to fly out at 10.30 to Dubai for the weekend.

Had a really interesting session with the mediators at KCDR today discussing a number of the issues which are coming up in their mediations and how they might be dealt with by them. One issue in particular we worked through in some detail is parties wanting to adjourn mediations, resulting in the mediation taking place over a number of sessions. The group came up with quite a few ideas about how to address this, which the mediators and the centre will now move forward.

Better go and catch my plane and so ends this trip to Pakistan. it has been great fun and as always I have learnt so much myself about mediation, people and life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

James

Mediator Skills course completed and 32 assessments done!!

The course has just finished after the team meeting to review all 32 assessments completed over the course of the last 2 days ( 2 assessments per participant). It has been a very busy couple of days but everyone has finished the course with smiles on their faces and the inevitable group photos and exchanges of business cards.

Heather, Ronald and Danny left this evening to go back to the UK leaving me all by myself to do a peer practice session tomorrow with the CEDR accredited mediators from last year, who are already mediating at the Centre.

Last day tomorrow and then a weekend off in Dubai!

Coaching day is always satisfying

Ronald Bradbeer joined us yesterday and now the team is complete for us to coach and assess the participants over the next 3 days.

Today was the coaching day, when all the participants work in the same group all day mediating one case from opening to concluding. They all got to be mediator once throughout the day and one of the faculty team is with them the whole time, coaching them actively during the sessions and giving them private feedback at the end of their session.

It was so much fun working this actively with the group and we all felt at the end of the day that the participants had learnt a great deal today and developed their practise. We are in good shape going into the assessment days tomorrow and Wednesday!!!!!

Enjoying Karachi

Today’s was our one day off and we had a fantastic day at the beach! One of the trainee trainers very kindly took Heather and me, to his beach house, about an hour out of Karachi. It was 30degrees with not a cloud in the sky. We had the beach to ourselves, someone came and cooked us fresh fish for lunch, we then had a swim, camel ride ( it literally groaned will standing up with Heather and my weight on its back) and sleep in the sun ( in that order). Just what the doctor ordered!!

Week one done!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have just finished what has been a very busy week. After me doing two days of mentoring and Heather training the 6 trainee trainers, we started the mediator skills training course on Wednesday and have just finished the 3^rd day today. We had 18 participants plus 4 observers as well as the 6 trainee trainers observing our teaching of the course. The participants are mostly lawyers with some other business professionals. They have been a great group to work with insightful and exuberant interaction during the debriefing of the role plays and exercises.

 

Danny McFadden, joined us on Thursday (after mediating on Tuesday and jumping on a plane that evening!!), to increase the amount of coaching we can give the group. Ronald Bradbeer arrives on Sunday and then the team is complete to go into the full coaching day on Monday and the assessment on Tuesday and Wednesday.

We have been getting out of the hotel in the evenings a going back to all our favourite restaurants here in Karachi. Seafood is always great and I sometimes think we should write a Karachi restaurant guide!!!!

Looking forward to our day off tomorrow before doing some work with trainees trainers on Sunday.

A rewarding first day in Karachi

Today was one of those rare days when you see everything come together and you have such a sense of satisfacation of being a small part of what has been achieved within 2 years here in Karachi, to introduce mediaion into the civil justice system.

Today was the first work day in Karachi after quite a journey to get here yesterday ( 12 hours flying, delays in Dubai for fog, not much sleep and worst of all, no water in the hotel swimming pool on arrival!!!).

I was working on mentoring/coaching 2 mediators on actual mediations taking place at the Karachi Centre for Dispute Resolution ( pictured above) . It was fantastic to see mediations actually taking place and helping the parties to settle their disputes, after 2 years of working with IFC to develop the centre and train the mediators.

It was also interesting to see some of the country-specific issues being faced by mediators as the process develops here. For example how do you encourage defendants to settle who are used to using the legal system to delay settling through the low cost of the litigation process and an almost unfeterred right of appeal.

Also the tendency here to have a number of short mediation sessions makes it difficult for the mediators to work with the parties to give them a sense of momentum, within the short time they are together.

I am sure we will work on these issues with the mediators on going forward.

Heather Allen has been working with trainees trainers on how to impart the skills and process of an effective mediators and then they will see us do it live on the mediator training course starting on Wednesday.

Until then

Cheers

James

Preparing for the work in Pakistan

The next trip to Karachi, Pakistan is coming up on Saturday with myself and my colleague Heather Allen leaving to begin two of the work streams early next week. We will then be joined by two more colleagues to help us finish to deliver the work streams over the final week. This is our fifth visit in a two year project for the private arm of the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

The project has been to establish mediation as a means of resolving commercial disputes in the courts in Karachi. A mediation centre has been established, the Karachi Centre for Dispute Resolution (KCDR) and a group a mediators trained to the international standard of CEDR accreditation. The centre has begun to receive cases from the Karachi high and districts courts and resolve them through mediation.

This trip involves 4 different work streams:

• Mentoring of newly trained mediator: This involves observing actual mediation and providing feedback to the mediators on how to develop their practice
• A 6 day mediator skills training course: to train 18 new mediators in the skills ands process of mediation which will result in assessment for CEDR accreditation.
• Master trainers Course: 6 mediators will train as mediator trainers. These trainers will then shadow us on the mediators skills course above to gain practical experience in training delivery
• Developing an ADR Curricula for Universities.: A workshop to further develop the framework curricula drafted by CEDR.

All these work streams will be delivered in a 2 week period so it is is going to be an intensive period of work but will be extremely rewarding as well. Past trips have been interesting and rewarding and we have made very many friends in Karachi who I look forward to meeting up with again.

This trip has been 2 months in the planning , a stage which is crucial if delivery on the ground is to go smoothly. We are all ready now so the next post on this blog will be on Sunday from Pakistan.

Cheers

James