Question:
Do you often have lawyers at the table?
Answer:
Fairly often.
Question:
And then are they typically the spokespeople?
Answer:
Not if I can help it. Sometimes a party most typically the community will want the
lawyer to be the spokesperson, because they don't have enough confidence in themselves. They
believe that their lawyer will represent them better. But if I can persuade them that both sides will
have a lawyer there as an advisor, but that the lawyers should not be the spokespeople, I find that
more effective. And once they've started in the process, that works. But I'm not always
persuasive.
I can think of at least one example where there was a great deal of hostility between the parties
and, in fact, the lawyers are the ones who made the agreement happen. In this case, the lawyers
had gotten beyond personal hostility issues and were able to advise their parties on what made
sense. The lawyers devised a solution that met both sides' needs, and then they sold that idea to
their clients. There was no way that the clients could have done that on their own, because they
weren't getting beyond their mutual resentment and hostility and total lack of trust in each other.
But the lawyers didn't assume each other to be jerks, so they were able to work out an agreement.
Without the attorneys, an agreement would never have been reached.
Question:
Did the agreement hold?
Answer:
For a while, for quite a while. I don't know what the situation is now. Again, this is one of
those communities where there has been conflict for decades, if not centuries. But it certainly
held on those particular issues, at least for quite a while. I haven't been there for a number of
years now. I suspect if I go back now, the same parties will still exist and some of that same
hostility and distrust will still be there. But there is at least a significant core of people who
participated in that mediation process and in reaching that agreement, and who saw that this
makes sense.
But again, it's not just up to the people at the table. Everyone at the table has people behind
them, out in the community who aren't at the table and who don't benefit from that process. So
those pressures on the people at the table ultimately have their impact again. I think the
agreements that are easiest to carry out and ultimately implement, are the ones in which the entire
party is at the table, without a lot of constituents out there who are going to look over their
shoulders or second-guess them, or even worse, have to approve the agreement that gets reached
at the table.
