October is about Mediation!

For decades now, the month of October has served as a time to reflect on the impact of mediation and other forms of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) on the court system and the lives of litigants. ADR has been used by Florida courts for more than 35 years. Mediators certified by the Florida Dispute Resolution Center under standards set by the Florida Supreme Court (which just issued a proclamation recognizing our significant expertise in helping participants find durable solutions) work in the areas of county, family, circuit-civil, dependency, and appellate court cases. In most cases, the parties select the mediator of their own choice. Those individuals who are not certified but who mediate court-ordered cases are still bound by the ethical standards contained in rules established by the Supreme Court. The annual focus on our profession highlights how individuals, administrative agencies, and businesses can effectively use these methods to develop solutions to conflicts tailored to specific needs. In addition to highlighting the benefits of mediation, many organizations offer programming too. In celebration of the American Arbitration Association (AAA) Centennial, they are holding Mediation Month, a national event series designed to provide advanced mediation training and strengthen connections within the dispute resolution community. The series will feature in-person CLE programs and networking receptions in five select U.S. cities. Each program will offer advanced, practical training for mediators and dispute resolution professionals, followed by a reception to foster camaraderie, professional connections, and continued engagement within the mediation community. The national theme for Mediation Month 2026 is ''The Final Mile of Mediation.'' Programs will focus on the critical final stage of the mediation process: helping parties move from progress at the table to a durable, enforceable, and well-documented resolution. Topics may include closing techniques, overcoming late-stage impasse, memorializing settlement terms, avoiding post-mediation disputes, and safeguarding settlement agreements so that 'almost done' becomes truly done. Also, the American Bar Association (ABA) Dispute Resolution Section is offering free attendance at its monthly Mediation Committee Forum to discuss "Share Mediation" which has the objective of promoting the awareness and utilization of mediation as an effective means of resolving conflicts by engaging dispute resolution practitioners nationwide in a unified, week-long public education campaign which is October 18th - 24th. Mediation Month is designed for experienced mediators, advocates, in-house counsel, and dispute resolution professionals seeking advanced training, practical tools, and meaningful connections with colleagues in the field. See more on here-- https://flcourts-media.flcourts.gov/content/download/2496312/file/Proclamation%20-%202026%20Alternative%20Dispute%20Resolution%20Week%2010.06.2026%20ADA.pdf and https://feature.adr.org/2026-AAA-Mediation-Month and https://www.americanbar.org/events-cle/mtg/virtual/464355701/

Mediation Magazine Article

So pleased to be published in this month's Mediation Magazine, a new offering from the American Arbitration Association (AAA). Mediation Magazine features a diverse range of articles and other media, including commentary on emerging trends in domestic and international mediation, case studies and lessons learned, interviews with thought leaders, innovations in mediation process design, research summaries, ethical considerations, and cross-cultural perspectives. It also offers practice-oriented content such as negotiation techniques, mediator toolkits, and dispute system design strategies. According to AAA, articles are written by leading voices in the field—practicing mediators, legal professionals, academics, and dispute resolution experts—and are complemented by interactive features such as videos to enrich engagement and accessibility. Published continuously throughout the year, Mediation Magazine aims to inform, inspire, and connect professionals committed to advancing effective, fair, and forward-looking mediation practices globally. I serve on the national panels for AAA commerical mediation and arbitraion. Though the now hundred-year-old non-profit organization has arbitration in the name, it maintains a robust mediation program. There is a growing prevalence among those drafting business contracts of including clauses requiring mediation as a precondition to initiating a lawsuit or arbitration. Disputes arising from contract obligations can be complex, technical, and even structural. Issues regarding the formation, interpretation, or enforcement of obligations invite evidentiary disputes over the circumstances surrounding the making and performance of the subject agreement. Most disputes result from the breakdown of a relationship, so I thought I'd expound on what happens in business cases and give some practical perspectives. Commercial mediators are able to ascertain the root cause of that breakdown and often help parties self-determine the outcome and avoid going to court or arbitration to get a resolution. See more here-- https://mediationmagazine.adr.org/practical-perspectives-on-commercial-mediation/

AAA Announces Resolution Simulator At Legal Week

Dubbed a "Dispute Revolution," the American Arbitration Association is launching its Resolution Simulator. Expanding the utility of the previously launched construction AI Arbitrator, the Resolution Simulator uses the same reasoning and analysis as the AI Arbitrator to provide simulated decisions based on the user submissions and feedback. Designed for single party use in documents-only AAA commercial and construction disputes, it promises explainable, informational insights grounded in structured legal reasoning, analysis, and decision logic. Parties may use it to understand how an arbitrator may resolve a dispute, develop their legal or negotiation strategy, or level-set internally with clients or counsel. It may also inform alternative paths to resolution, such as settlement or mediation. Ultimately, AAA hopes the product brings legal teams insight before escalation, empowering strategic decision-making and informing a path to resolution. The latest product launch underscores the AAA's commitment to responsible AI adoption, with governance, transparency, and auditability guiding the design and deployment of all AI-enabled tools. According to the AAA, this effort builds upon their 100-year history of helping parties navigate conflict through fair, transparent, and trusted processes. AI Arbitrator's Resolution Simulator responds to user demand for practical evaluative and decisioning tools, particularly in the early stages of a dispute, by illustrating how an arbitrator might analyze the dispute. See more here-- https://tinyurl.com/4azzjb57 and https://feature.adr.org/LegalWeek2026

Future of AI in ADR

For Mediation Week 2025, I will recount my observations from attending the American Arbitration Association's (AAA) Future of Dispute Resolution Conference in New York, dealing with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Taking place at Cardozo Law School in conjunction with the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR) and sponsored by the Practising Law Institute (PLI), this dynamic conference with Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) professionals, lawyer advocates, in-house counsel, programmers and developers explored how AI is transforming arbitration, mediation, and online dispute resolution (ODR). Legaltech innovators, institutional leaders and practitioners had quite interactive debates, a live demonstration of AAA's upcoming AI-trained construction arbitration product being launched next month (still requiring human oversight), and some real-world case studies. Humans are not being replaced, rather augmented in their skills and time management. Experience in the field cannot be simply replaced by machine, though AI's influence on dispute prevention cannot be understated. It will impact process, integrity, ethics and certainly case resolution outcomes. At the conclusion of the program, online dispute resolution pioneer, Colin Rule, opined that AI was really better suited as a tool to help both parties and neutrals in mediation, moreso than arbitration. The Future Dispute Resolution New York Hackathon the following day was hosted at AAA in Manhattan and included the Wolters Kluwer Arbitration digital experience team. This collaborative workshop paired neutrals with staff technologists and coders. Guided by product designers, engineers, and user experience (UX) experts, we collaborated forming interdisciplinary teams to identify practical pain points in the dispute resolution lifecycle and to rapidly prototype technology solutions from dispute prevention alerting tools to court service portals for self-represented entrepreneurs. Building on the success of the Future Dispute Resolution Hague Hackathon, our teams brainstormed in the morning and developed next-gen ADR demos in the afternoon, aiming to make dispute resolution processes faster, more equitable, and less expensive. The presentations from nine teams at the end of the day were quite impressive, given the compressed time to develop apps. Our team created "NeutralLens" an AI product for more efficiently distilling document submissions. For accuracy, our team utilized a Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) an AI framework that enhances a large language model (LLM) by allowing it to retrieve relevant information from an external knowledge base to produce more up-to-date and trustworthy responses. It was all very inspiring and we hope will lead to a better experience for those utilizing ADR to get better access to justice outside the court system. See more here-- https://go.adr.org/2025-future-of-dispute-resolution-hackathon and https://www.adr.org/news-and-insights/ai-in-construction-disputes/

Now Available as AAA Panelist

Orlando Mediator Lawrence Kolin is now available as a panel neutral for the American Arbitration Asoociation (AAA). Though Lawrence was a party-selected AAA arbitrator and mediator in the past, and has even presented educational programs in conjunction with AAA, he has officially become a member for purposes of resolving cases under the auspices of AAA. As a reminder, Mediation is used to resolve a broad range of conflicts within a variety of settings. Mediation is a process in which an impartial third party facilitates communication and negotiation and promotes voluntary decision making by the parties to the dispute. Mediation agreements may be included as part of a contract that specifies what procedures will govern the mediation process. Alternatively, parties frequently agree to mediate following the onset of a dispute regardless of whether their contract stipulates mediation as a means of resolution, or when there is no contract between the parties. Mediation serves various purposes, including providing the opportunity for parties to define and clarify issues, understand different perspectives, identify interests, explore and assess possible solutions, and reach mutually satisfactory agreements, when desired. See more here-- https://tinyurl.com/bdzj99bw

ADR Arbitration Advocacy Institute 11/13!

Please join me this month at the ADR Section of The Florida Bar's inaugural Arbitration Advocacy Institute. This innovative program is a one-day, online workshop for attorney-arbitrators that will provide coaching on mechanics, technology and professionalism to help Florida attorneys boost their arbitration advocacy skills. Attendees will increase their knowledge of the arbitration process from beginning to end-- distinct from mediation and litigation-- and participate in virtual clinics for diverse arbitration practice areas. A prestigious faculty of over 30 presenters will demonstrate effective and ethical techniques that will enable participants to reach the highest levels of advocacy in arbitration. Login on Friday, November 13, 2020 from 8:45 a.m. to 6 p.m. with an optional virtual networking hour on November 12 at 5:30 p.m. This course has been approved for 8.5 General CLE credits in Florida 1.0 of which may be applied toward Professionalism, and 1.0 Technology credit. Participants earn 1.5 additional General CLE credits for participation in a Virtual Clinic. Section members $185, non-section members $230 and law students just $60 (includes ADR Section membership). See more information and registration details here-- https://flabaradr.com/arbitration-advocacy-institute and https://bit.ly/3kRtgaz

TRO issued in Jay-Z AAA Arbitration

An injunction was issued this week by a New York judge in favor of Jay-Z on the grounds that the lack of African-American arbitrators provided by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) impeded his right to equal opportunity under the law. Judge Saliann Scarpulla issued a temporary restraining order, pushing arbitration back to next month at the earliest. The dispute involves Iconix, which acquired Rocawear in 2007, and sued the rapper last year for allegedly breaching their 2007 contract by using the Roc Nation logo on a new line of baseball caps. A countersuit argues that the contract applied only to Rocawear and not Roc Nation, at which point both parties entered AAA arbitration. Jay-Z claims AAA found only three potential African-American arbitrators, out of the hundreds it uses, for his case, and one already represented Iconix in related litigation. To begin the process, the AAA typically provides parties with a list of potential arbitrators from which they must eliminate names until they arrive at one. Reportedly, Jay-Z maintains that white arbitrators exhibit “unconscious bias” towards black defendants, and that the AAA’s lack of racial diversity consequently “deprives litigants of colour of a meaningful opportunity to have their claims heard by a panel of arbitrators reflecting their backgrounds and life experience.” His lawyers claim arbitration procedures in place by the AAA “deprive black litigants...of the equal protection of the laws, equal access to public accommodations, and mislead consumers into believing that they will receive a fair and impartial adjudication.” Although the ruling may not stop the proceeding altogether, it could set an important precedent for addressing diversity in neutral selection. See full news stories here-- https://bit.ly/2RpXHpr and https://nbcnews.to/2KIkQkm

Arbitration Questions

This week, perhaps because of the recent depiction of an arbitration on a couple of episodes of HBO's popular Sunday night show, Silicon Valley, I've been getting some queries on the process. One question was whether confidential matters could be disclosed when the arbitrator renders detailed findings of fact and conclusions of law in a reasoned award. Often we are asked not to provide reasoned awards for this purpose. Confidentiality can be preserved is through the use of confidentiality agreements or by including liquidated damages clauses within the arbitration provisions of the subject contract itself. Parties subject to such an arbitration clause agree that they would be entitled to specified damages for breach upon disclosure of information designated as confidential. Another topic that arose was whether there is a right to appeal an arbitrator’s award as one might a judgment rendered in a trial court. Under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), a court must confirm an arbitration award except in limited circumstances. The FAA provides few grounds for vacating an arbitration award. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court has confirmed only a handful of exclusive means for vacating an award under the FAA. These are limited to narrowly defined procedural irregularities and are difficult to prove, except in egregious cases. A few courts have vacated awards based on review of an arbitrator’s “manifest disregard of the law,” but federal circuits remain split as to whether that constitutes valid basis for independent review. However, appellate review under the American Arbitration Association's (AAA) recent optional rules is now available. The rules provide parties with a streamlined, standardized review of arbitral awards. AAA maintains this appellate rubric remains consistent with the objective of an expedited, cost effective and just arbitration process. An appellate arbitral panel applies a standard of review more expansive than that allowed by existing federal and state law in vacating awards. This process was really developed for large, complex cases where parties heavily value the ability to appeal. Parties may use these rules with agreement by contract or stipulation. Appeals are only permitted on the grounds that the underlying award is based on errors of law that are material, prejudicial or is made on clearly erroneous determinations of fact. Generally, AAA appeals will be determined upon the written documents submitted by the parties, with no oral argument, and completed in about three months. Interestingly, the parties may apply the rules whether or not the underlying award was conducted pursuant to AAA or International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) rules. See rules here-- http://bit.ly/1cDPGXy

AAA's New Consumer Arbitration Rules

This month, the American Arbitration Association's new Consumer Arbitration Rules became effective. According to AAA, these rules apply when arbitration clauses exist in agreements between individual consumers and businesses where a business has standardized, systematic application of arbitration clauses to its customers and where the terms and conditions of the purchase of standardized, consumable goods or services are non-negotiable or primarily non-negotiable in most or all of its terms, conditions, features, or choices. The product or service must be for personal or household use. The AAA will have discretion to apply the Consumer Arbitration Rules and parties can bring any disputes concerning the application or non-application to the attention of the arbitrator. Businesses are required to submit their consumer arbitration clause to the AAA for review and determination that the clause substantially and materially complies with the due process standards of the AAA’s Consumer Due Process Protocol and the amended Consumer Rules. Businesses will only be included in the registry after the AAA reviews a submitted clause, receives the required fee and determines that it will arbitrate a consumer-related dispute under the clause. The fee has been lowered to $500 for clauses submitted in 2015. AAA will charge an annual renewal fee starting in 2016. Each variation of the business’s arbitration clause must be separately registered. If a business has not registered its consumer clause prior to the filing of a consumer case, the AAA will require that the business register its clause at that time for an additional fee of $250 for an expedited review. Additionally, any subsequent revisions to a currently registered arbitration clause must be resubmitted for review. A fee of $500 will be assessed to review revisions. See more here-- http://bit.ly/Z7rSWJ and http://bit.ly/1lAgU6l

AAA Appellate Arbitration Rules

The American Arbitration Association (AAA) has introduced a new set of Optional Appellate Arbitration Rules effective this month. These new rules provide parties with a streamlined, standardized, appellate arbitration procedure, allowing for review of arbitral awards. AAA maintains this appellate rubric remains consistent with the objective of an expedited, cost effective and just arbitration process. Courts have previously used only narrowly defined statutory grounds to set aside arbitration awards. This process now provides for an appeal within the arbitration. An appellate arbitral panel applies a standard of review more expansive than that allowed by existing federal and state law in vacating awards. Though optional, these rules were developed for large, complex cases where parties value the ability to appeal. Parties may use these rules with agreement by contract or stipulation. Appeals are only permitted on the grounds that the underlying award is based on errors of law that are material, prejudicial or is made on clearly erroneous determinations of fact. Generally, AAA appeals will be determined upon the written documents submitted by the parties, with no oral argument. As efficiency is desired, the Optional Appellate Arbitration Rules anticipate a three month process to complete resolution. At present, the panels consist of former federal and state judges and neutrals with strong appellate backgrounds. Interestingly, the parties may apply the rules whether or not the underlying award was conducted pursuant to AAA or International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) rules. See rules here-- http://bit.ly/1cDPGXy