First North Texas Mediation Conference Held June 9

By Kay Elliott

On Saturday, June 9, five North Texas mediation organizations held the first annual mediation conference at Texas Wesleyan University School of Law in Fort Worth, Texas.

The Dallas Association for Conflict Resolution spearheaded the planning and invited the Southwest Conflict Resolution Network of Plano, Texas; the Tarrant County Association of Mediators of Fort Worth, Texas; the Dispute Mediation Service of Dallas and the Dispute Resolution Service of North Texas to be co-sponsors. Officers of the five organizations worked collaboratively to plan and deliver a first rate conference.

Three themes emerged that were deemed highly relevant to mediators: ethical challenges; expert tips for mediating specific types of cases and the discoveries about brain science and emotional intelligence.

The keynote speaker was Judge Debra Lehrmann, a visionary family judge whose topics were Therapeutic Justice, Problem Solving, and Courts and the Mediator. Judges from North Texas were invited to attend at no charge. The five organizations cooperated in marketing and even competed, in a friendly way, to see who could get the most registrants to the conference. ACR Dallas won that competition with 16 registrants.

Participants were able to get information and even join the following Texas organizations: Texas Association of Mediators, The Texas Mediation Credentialing Association, ACR National, The ADR Section of the State Bar of Texas and the Dispute Resolution Section of the American Bar Association, as well as the five sponsoring organizations. Several law students attended and volunteered to help during the day. Pictures of the day show how much the participants enjoyed being together and learning more about their passion.

More than seventy mediators and judges attended, providing opportunities for learning, networking and socializing. The program was granted 3.5 hours of Ethics Continuing Legal Education Credit by the State Bar of Texas Continuing Legal Education Department.

The day began with registration and breakfast. Every attendee was given a certificate for the 4.5 participatory hours granted by the SBOT - CLE department that can be used to satisfy the continuing education requirement for the Texas Association of Mediators and the Texas Mediator Credentialing Association (TMCA).

Giveaways included special candies imprinted with the names of the five organizations, door prizes for 10 participants, six books on mediation, and annual dues for four new mediators to be credentialed with TMCA.

After a marketing specialist spoke to the conference’s theme: Gold Standard Mediation, a panel of experts on mediation and ethical marketing gave tips on establishing and growing their mediation business in several practice areas: employment, family, government and health care. One panelist focused on the importance of building a powerful internet presence and the specifics of doing that successfully. Ross Stoddard, a distinguished mediator in Texas, led the audience through a mediation ethics game (Do You Want to Be a Mediataire? (Mediator Extraordinaire!) that was informative and hilarious.

The day ended on a high with two psychologists, one a cognitive scientist and engineer, the other a bilingual clinical psychologist and change management specialist. They explained physiological and neurological changes occurring when a disputant is in stress. The experts helped everyone understand that when mediators improve their emotional intelligence and become more mindful, the disputants can move from fight or flight behaviors to the brain waves and body chemistry of peace.

Evaluations were enthusiastic! One mediator said it was the best program he had ever attended. Many asked that the conference be repeated next year. The price was kept low ($85 for early registrants, $95 for others) because the law school donated space, audio visual equipment and extensive handouts.

Many friendships were begun or enhanced during the day. Specific suggestions for next year’s program were part of the evaluation and will be implemented. The mission was to bring together mediators in North Texas when no other mediation conferences were conferencing. Peacemakers like to network, collaborate, exchange information and just be together. At the Mini - Conference they did just that!

Sitting across the table from Kay Elliott it is evident why she is President of the Dallas Chapter of the Association for Conflict Resolution. Her passion and respect for conflict resolution is in every fiber of her being. You hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes as you watch her face light up when she talks about peace, the conflict resolution industry, and her love for mediation.

Kay Elliott’s legal career spans thirty years, which includes ten years practicing law and twenty years mediating more than 1700 cases. Kay does not focus solely on the mediation aspect of conflict resolution. In addition, to her training and experience in mediation, she has earned more than 1200 hours in arbitration, collaborative law, negotiation, and facilitation training.

Prior to her legal career, Kay studied and performed as a pianist, actress, and singer both in the United States and abroad. She majored in opera and minored in piano during her studies at Stephens College and The University of Oklahoma (OU). While living in South Africa, she performed jingles, commercials, dramatic roles and did voice-overs while working at a radio production house in Johannesburg.

During her nine and one half years, stay in South Africa, Kay attended The University of South Africa and set an academic precedent by earning the highest grade ever received in Sociology. This achievement garnered her invitation to join the university’s honors program in sociology. In addition, this achievement also led to a chance conversation with a professor, which would later be part of the catalyst for Kay’s mediation career.

Reflecting on that conversation, Kay shared, "A female professor said to me, "This is what you should do". Instead of just being a lawyer, this is your best thing; you ought to find a way to use this aptitude." I said, "What aptitude is that?" She said, "The ability to do probabilistic thinking." What is probabilistic thinking? "It’s sort of like chess, where each move and contingency is planned in advance," she answered. During her conversation with her professor, she shared her plans to return home to America and work as a lawyer.

Because she had just gone through a divorce, and had three young children, Kay decided to return home to Dallas to start over. She worked for the Federal Government, first as an Administrative Judge’s law clerk for the Social Security Administration and later as an Administrative Hearing officer for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

In 1982 when the Dispute Mediation Services (DMS) was beginning, Kay received an invitation to attend mediation training from DMS. Since completing her mediation training, she has continued to volunteer as a mediator with DMS and with DRS in Fort Worth, where she now lives. In 1987, the Texas ADR act was passed and she later received more training from the Attorney Mediators Institute before she began court-referred cases through her own mediation business, Elliott Mediations.

In conjunction with her careers as mediator and lawyer, she is also an Alternative Dispute Resolution Professor, Lecturer, Trainer, Facilitator, and Consultant. She is an adjunct professor at Texas Wesleyan University School of Law, has coached championship teams there in Negotiation, Mediation. Arbitration and Client Counseling and coordinates the Certificate in Conflict Resolution Program for Texas Woman’s University.

Kay has been honored in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Women, Who’s Who in the World and Who’s Who in American Law. She is President of the Dallas Chapter of the Association for Conflict Resolution, a founding member of the Texas Mediation Trainers Roundtable and a board member of the Texas Mediator Credentialing Association. She is also a columnist, and writer for several mediation and legal publications. She co-edited the State Bar of Texas ADR handbook with her husband and is co-authoring an ADR book with him to be published this year. Kay will be teaching two workshops during a cruise "Mediating at Sea", in November.

She has enjoyed a rewarding career in conflict resolution and has explored many different aspects of the industry. Kay continues to give back and contribute to the community and Conflict Resolution industry. With a heart and passion for peace, she has great ideas and plans for more contributions as she leads us at the Dallas Chapter of the Association for Conflict Resolution.

be," says Kay.

Well, the first thing I did was look for an office and I found a building on Turtle Creek and Fairmount where several other pioneer mediators were located. I continued to be a volunteer at DMS. I affiliated with the Association of Attorney Mediators, joined all of the organizations such as Texas Association of Mediators and SPIDR (now Dallas ACR). I was part of a toastmasters group that a group of mediators put together. So I guess you could say it was informal, it was just networking, going to things, meeting people and trying to do a good job. It wasn’t very sophisticated in terms of business planning.

(Word-of-mouth, referrals and Yellow Pages)

I think in the beginning it was just word of mouth and referrals from lawyers I knew or had seen somewhere and given them my card. Sometimes, you might do a case with someone at one of the centers and they would call you and ask if you would do a case privately. Sometimes people who knew you would call you because they also knew you were a mediator. I used the yellow pages. I printed some brochures. We did not do websites in those days and I did not do mass mail or anything like that. Things were cut and dried in those days.

I think now it is a combination of referrals from people that I have already mediated for and people with whom I network. You meet lawyers, judges, and peers at Conflict Resolution associations and organizational meetings and Bar Association meetings whether Dallas or Tarrant County and they get to know you. I will give you an example. I had a call yesterday from a woman whom I have never met, to do a family case in the next few weeks. She'd had either lunch or coffee with a lawyer the day before who had mediated with me; she mentioned a difficult case for which she needed a good mediator and the lawyer referred the caller to me.

Now of course, we have websites. People also get to know you from your involvement in industry associations and organizations such as contributing to a newsletter. I write columns for the State Bar ADR Newsletter called ‘Reflections from the Edge’ and I am going to be writing a regular column for the Texas Association of Mediators.

In 1982, I was still working for EEOC and I figured I would continue to do that unless a better legal job came along. In 1983, I got married to my husband, Frank Elliott. In 1984, I stopped working and started doing some other things such as traveling with him etc. I continued to mediate and raise my children. Three years later, when the statute passed, I began to see that maybe I could do this fulltime.

I think the training is just the first step. However, as soon as you emerge from your training, you want to get experience. The Dispute Resolution Centers, such as Dispute Mediation Services (DMS), have opportunities for people to get the experience they need. Without that experience, you are not going to be competitive with people who are experienced. Until you have quite a lot of experience, and that’s a catch 22, you aren’t going to be that good a mediator. I don’t care how smart or how charismatic you are, to be an expert takes a lot of experience. You don’t get to be an expert overnight. You get to be an expert because you prove you are an expert and that takes time.

Continue to take courses, do things, and try to get better and better at what you do. I think being a life-long learner and self-actualizer is part of being a good peacemaker. I don’t think there is anything more important for us to do than be a good peacemaker, even if we never make a lot of money.

Being a conflict profession is not yet a well-defined or legislatively decreed profession. Unlike some older professions, we are new and we have to find our way. One of my projects this year is to start to create a database of opportunities so that a new mediator, after she has been trained, can see where she fits in that spectrum of jobs.

Everybody is going to have his or her own path. I think if you get into this career you need to look at all the different facets of it and I think you need to broaden your concept beyond trying to open up a business from scratch. I don’t think that all of us should define ourselves as private mediators and try to open up a storefront and get business somehow.

I think we should: Identify what our strengths are, what our target market is, and how we can develop that target market. Before we are mediators, we come from the world of business, insurance, law enforcement, mental health, healthcare, law, or another industry. In that professional world, each has contacts and spheres of influence. Now there are many jobs for people who are conflict resolution professionals, which were not available back in 1989. It goes beyond being just a mediator. If you are going to enter the field, I think you need training as a facilitator, a group leader in meetings, negotiator, mediator, and maybe as an arbitrator because the more different things you can do, the more skills you have, the more services you can offer the consumer, the better opportunities you’ll have to have a career.

Networking is key. Join local, regional, state, national, and international associations and organizations. I think joining organizations such as The Texas Association of Mediators, The Association for Conflict Resolution, and, even if you are not a lawyer, The State Bar ADR Section and getting active in those organizations, getting out there, getting visible, and being part of the group, is all part of learning the lay of the land. Keep Learning. Keep Doing. Network, Network, Network.

If you have spoken to a group on the subject of ACR or ADR, please let us know so we can include your information in our report. ---Joe Hewitt hewittjoe_marona@msn.com.

DATE ORGANIZATION SPEAKER

May 8, 2007 Duncanville Breakfast Rotary Club Joe Hewitt

June 21, 2007 Dallas Evening Rotary Club Joe Hewitt