Using our inner experience in the presence of conflict and unblocking ourselves from parties can open channels of communication that help parties understand their problem at a deeper level. Recognizing internal reactions that can get in the way of connecting to a client and working with that reaction to open our connection to the client can also open the way for the parties to communicate better.

Reactions to clients and their situations are essential to our relative effectiveness with them. Stories that clients bring into the room, filled with pain, frustration, anger, hope, and desire, can cause unconscious reactions that remind mediators of their own life. These reactions favor one side over another, create judgments, and lead to positive or negative bias.

Join Gary Friedman and Hansa Patel on December 15th to learn the importance of the inner work required to be open and aware of our internal reactions and steps for using these insights to bring clients closer together in their efforts to resolve conflict.

December 15, 2022

12 PM PDT • 3 PM EDT • 9 PM CEST

Cost $47

All webinars are free for CUC Connect members. Click here to learn more.

Gary J. Friedman has been practicing law as a mediator with Mediation Law Offices in Mill Valley, California since 1976, integrating mediative principles into the practice of law and the resolution of legal disputes. Co-founder of the Center for Understanding in Conflict (formerly the Center for Mediation in Law), he has been teaching mediation since 1980. Prior to his work as a mediator, he practiced law as a trial lawyer with Friedman and Friedman in Bridgeport, Connecticut. After several years as an advocate, he sought a new approach to resolving disputes through increasing the participation of the parties in the resolution of their differences. At that time, he and his colleague, Jack Himmelstein, began to develop the Understanding-based model that is now practiced extensively in the United States and Europe. As one of the first lawyer mediators and a primary force in the current mediation movement, he has used this model to complete over one thousand mediations in the last two decades He has mediated numerous two-party and multi-party disputes in the commercial and non-profit realms, in the area of intellectual property, real estate, corporate, personnel, partnership formations and dissolutions, and family law.

Hansa Patel is an attorney, mediator, and teacher.  As an attorney, Hansa zealously advocated for abused and neglected children or defended their parents’ rights in the San Francisco juvenile dependency court for fourteen years.  Hansa is passionate about serving the underprivileged community.  Feeling depleted by the court system, Hansa explored new ways to empower her clients to resolve conflict.  Mediation empowers Hansa’s clients to choose how they want to engage with conflict, co-create resolutions, and even transform a relationship.  In the USA, Canada, and Africa, Hansa teaches mediation, including integrating mindfulness skills into conflict resolution.  Hansa wants her clients to have the same tools she cultivates in her children:  a mindful approach to resolving challenges in life.