Lex Infinitum

Lex Infinitum

Lex Infinitum, International Dispute Resolution Competition has been conceived for the purpose of promoting the use of ADR and to provide law students and ADR experts from all over the globe with a platform to network, innovate and keep abreast of the latest happenings in the field of ADR in India as well as abroad.

OUR GOAL: To provide law students with an opportunity to showcase their ADR skills and techniques and test their mettle against the creme de la creme of the law student fraternity from different parts of the world. Lex infinitum is one of the most prestigious events on par with prominent international ADR competitions like ICC Paris and CDRC Vienna. Due to the successful hosting and the
credibility that the competition has been able to achieve at the international level, we have entered into an MOU with the AIDR (Association for International Dispute Resolution).

Mediation Musings

As a precursor to the event, “Mediation Musings” an interactive session on the theme “Just settle or settle for the just” was held at International Centre of Goa from 5 to 7 p.m. on 7th January 2020. It was in collaboration with the International Centre of Goa. The session was presided over by ADR experts Thomas Valenti, Attorney, Mediator, Dr. M.R.K. Prasad, Principal of V.M. Salgaocar College of Law, Malini Chakraborty, Senior Lawyer and accredited Arbitrator, and E. O. Mendes, Attorney. It was open to the general public.

08-01-2020 (Day Zero)

The event began with the registration for the participants, the Expert assessors, as well as the delegates at 9 a.m. at the V.M.Salgaocar College of Law.

Participants’ Workshop
Training sessions were conducted for the participating teams by the experts.Two sessions were conducted for negotiators on the “Process of Negotiation” and two sessions for the Mediators on the “Skills of Mediation”.The purpose of these sessions was to acquaint the participating teams with the process of negotiation and mediation and its strategies. The sessions for Negotiators were conducted by Kimberly Schriber (President, GRO) and David Adams (Member GRO). The sessions for mediators were conducted by Thomas Valenti (Attorney and Mediator) and Cezary Rogula (Member GRO). The sessions were conducted from 10 to 11 a.m and 11.30 am. to 12.30 p.m.

Mock mediation for the participants:
There was a mock mediation conducted for the purpose of acquainting the students with the procedure of mediation that they have to follow during the competition. E. O. Mendes (Advocate, Mediator) acted as a Mediator and Sydney Cardozo, Bernard Dsouza, Sailee Keni and Shreya Arur (Ex- students and experts) acted as Negotiators. It was conducted from 1.30 to 2.30 p.m.

Mediation Musings

As a precursor to the event, “Mediation Musings” an interactive session on the theme “Just settle or settle for the just” was held at International Centre of Goa from 5 to 7 p.m. on 7th January 2020. It was in collaboration with the International Centre of Goa. The session was presided over by ADR experts Thomas Valenti, Attorney, Mediator, Dr. M.R.K. Prasad, Principal of V.M. Salgaocar College of Law, Malini Chakraborty, Senior Lawyer and accredited Arbitrator, and E. O. Mendes, Attorney. It was open to the general public.

AWARDS:
Following were the awards:
Best Mediator Award for Lex Infinitum 2020 for an International Team “The Dr. M. R. K Prasad Lex Infinitum Incentive Award for the Best Mediator from an International Team” Components:
1. Reimbursement of the team application admission fee for Lex Infinitum 2020 for an International Team
2. Up to $500 in travel cost reimbursement for Lex Infinitum 2020
3. Payment of the Admission Fee at Lex Infinitum 2021 for the same Institution provided that at least one team member has never competed in an International tournament.
a. Winner (Negotiators) Winner of Final Round
b. Winner (Mediator) Winner of Final Round
c. The Dr. M. R. K Prasad Lex Infinitum Incentive Award -The Best Mediator from an International Team
d. Runner Up (Negotiators) -Runner Up of Final Round
e. Runner Up (Mediator) -Runner Up of Final Round
f. Special Award for Negotiating Team (Preliminary Round)
g. Special Award for Mediator (Preliminary Round)
h. Special Award for Negotiating Team (Second Round)
i. Special Award for Mediator (Second Round)
j. Upcoming Mediator
k. Spirit of Lex

Delegate sessions/Knowledge Sessions

Another significant aspect of the Lex Infinitum is the conduct of sessions for interested participants by the various recognized experts over a period of three days. Through knowledge sessions, experts from all around the world as well as India come and share their knowledge and experiences with the audience.

Day 1- 8th January 2020

Session 1 – E.O Mendes
The first session of the day was held by Mr. E.O. Mendes who is a senior mediator with over 30 years of experience. Mr. Mendes spoke on the broad topic CONFLICT and its connection to mediation. According to Mr. Mendes conflict is “When two different ideas run in opposition”. He spoke about how when two kinds of behaviors clash conflict arises and if there is no clash of behaviors there will be no conflict. He spoke about how there is a flow and variety of emotions and as the conflict increases the intensity of the emotions rises proportionally. Mr. Mendes talked about how if conflict is not addressed it will keep rising, and how it is important to address conflict to save ourselves from the consequences. He also talked about how parties use retaliation to dominate others to get the upper hand in the conflict. The second half of the session was based around the topics of how to deal with conflicts, how to strategize, the importance of the time and place of the settlement of the conflict, how to find out the root cause of the conflict so that it’s easier to handle it. An important aspect of handling conflicts he mentioned was the ability to gather information and use that information to diffuse the conflict at hand. He concluded by talking about how the result of the conflict may not always be the end and the session was wrapped up with an interesting Q and A session.

Session 2 – Kimberly Schreiber
Mrs. Kimberly Schreiber, a criminal defense attorney with over 20 years of experience, spoke about the 4 different types of negotiation and understanding one’s negotiation partner. She began the session with a question, “What is negotiation?” and according to her “It is an interaction and process between entities who compromise to agree on matters of mutual interest.” The session then moved onto the principles of negotiation right from defining your goals to the strategy one is going to use. Mrs. Kimberly then spoke about the defaults one has right down to understanding one’s own personality and finding out one’s own style of negotiation so we can use that type to our benefit. Asking genuine questions was a point she stressed upon as it’s a major part of negotiation sessions. Some golden words learnt during this session were “Never be eager”. The 4 kinds of negotiators she talked about were, The CEO, The Accountant, The Helper and last but not the least, The Weekend Warrior. Apart from taking the audience through these types she spoke about how each of these types communicate, how they act and how to communicate with each of these types.

Session 3 – David Adams
The third and final session of the day was conducted by David Adams who is a senior mediator in the United States, he took up the topic of identifying interests and rapport building. He started off by speaking about how to break the ice with strangers and to start a conversation in day-to-day life as well as on the professional front. He went on to talk about body language and how it is very important to know basic body language even for people who aren’t in the field of negotiation. He also went deeper into the topic and spoke about how if one has the knowledge of body language it can make a major change to the way we look at a conversation. “Trust is the hardest thing to build but the easiest thing to lose” he said while talking about how to gain trust with people during conversations. Mr Adams also gave a formula for trust which was T=C x I / R in which T is trust, C is credibility, I is intimacy and R is risk. He gave many realistic examples which all of us face in a dayto-day life and they enhanced the whole experience of the session. He emphasized on how one must have a little bit of basic knowledge of any field or a little background information on the person we are conversing with. He then spoke about how we can make out a lot about another person by the way they dress, or speak or any other pointers that may be visible. The session then ended with an interesting Q and A session and brought the delegate sessions of Day 1 of Lex Infinitum 2020 to an end.

the  Day 2 – 9th January 2020
Session 1 – Cezary Rogula
Mr. Cezary Rogula is a Polish advocate and mediator with many years of experience and he spoke on how to generate options and alternatives during mediation sessions. He started by talking about how Poland is a very litigious country but one can see a rise in mediation slowly taking place. He urged the audience to take up alternative resolution options rather than taking the disputes to court. “Please consider the alternatives” say Mr. Cezary while talking about what he advises his clients when they come to him.
He explained to the audience some of the basic terms that mediators use. He went on to speak about how to deal with a mediated case and all the components that go into it. Mr. Cezary also spoke about how cultural understandings are integral when it comes to mediation as it helps us understand the other parties and the way they function. He then moved on to the importance of caucuses and cross-caucuses in meditation. Towards the end of the session he spoke about value, how it’s calculated and its sources. The final topic of the session was bargaining and how it is important to make the first offer.

Session 2 – Charles Middleton Smith who’s been a mediator for over 20 years, spoke on commitment and communication. He started off by showing the audience a picture and asked them to note down what their reaction was. The purpose behind this was to bring out how different people communicate differently and how each person’s thought process is different. He then went on to talk about the types of communication like verbal and non-verbal and also talked a bit about body language. “Understanding what your emotions are will help you give the right non-verbal clues” says Mr. Smith while talking about important tips to keep in mind during mediation. He talked about how building a rapport between parties is very important when it comes to communication. He spoke about what you can achieve by asking questions and how crucial they are to a conversation. “People never make their best offer to begin with,” Mr. Smith said as he proceeded to speak about commitment and communication. He further spoke on, “How do you get people to commit to a settlement?”

Session 3 – Doak Patton
Mr. Doak is a lawyer from the USA with over 20 years of litigation experience in the field. “As humans we enjoy conflict,” he says while talking about basic human behavior. He continued to speak about different techniques of mediation including arbitration and case evaluation that he’s familiar with in the U.S. He went on further to ask the audience what kind of processes Indian mediators have handled. Mr. Doak expressed his views on the benefits of mediation stating that there is a lot of scope and facets that mediation can cover. He spoke about the five stages of mediation and addressed each in detail and what result is expected. Mr. Doak occasionally conversed with the audience curious in understanding how the Indian Mediation experts work and to gauge the understanding of the audience regarding the mediation process. “Mediation is a special stylized form of negotiation,” he says.

Session 4 – Thomas Valenti
The fourth and final session of the day was held by Thomas Valenti. The final topic for the day was role of a mediator. He began by telling us the different types of roles a mediator has to take up, like the host or hostess, the educator, the interior designer, the contractor, the power balancer, and many more, and how each of these roles is important to make parties feel at home. He then moved on to how a mediation session takes place and what one looks like, keeping in mind Lex Infinitum 2020. Mr. Valenti took us through the various steps of a classic mediation right from the opening statement to how one must communicate during the mediation. He then spoke about an agenda, right from how it is set to how to go about it. The session then ended with a knowledgeable and interesting Q and A session. And that was an end to an eventful day. 

Day 3 – 10th January 2020
Session 1 – Damali Peterman
Mrs. Peterman is an attorney at law from New York with a lot of experience in the field of litigation as well as mediation. The topic of her session was workplace mediation. She started the session by talking about techniques to solve workplace disputes. She talked a bit about how humans react to disputes, the 3 F’s were discussed which are Freeze, Flight, and Fight. She then conducted an exercise with the class and talked about how when clients come to a mediation they don’t show or express the whole conflict, then it’s the mediator’s job to dig deep and get out the whole issue. “People only see the tip of the iceberg, as mediators, we have to see what’s beneath the water,” she says while talking about how some people react during mediation sessions.” Mediators are conductors of an orchestra,” she said while talking about the role of a mediator. Conflict often presents as a loss of power or threat to identity. She then gave tips on how to break through during mediation sessions like trust, acceptance, and understanding and asked a lot of questions along these lines. Mrs. Peterman then conducted a role-playing exercise for the whole class where everyone was put into groups of 3 and were asked to play out a mediation session and come up with solutions that were shared with the whole class.

Session 2 – Dr. M.R.K Prasad
Dr. M.R.K Prasad the Principal of V. M. Salgaocar College of Law, Goa, took up the second session of the day on the topic Process of Mediation. He started off the session with an exercise to show what the different types of negotiation are, like hard negotiation and soft negotiation. The next topic was the stages of mediation which covered right from the time and place of the mediation to the opening statement and to what the opening statement contains and how it must be given. He then conducted another exercise and involved the audience in a very fun and interesting way, and gave very simple and valuable examples that one could easily relate to. He talked about how to facilitate negotiation, and the different types of sessions i.e. joint and separate. The session then moved on to settlements, and how to close the mediation if the parties agree to the settlement on the table and sign the deal. The final moments of the session consisted of the key ethical issues that are faced during mediation like confidentiality, the mediator’s competence, the impartiality of the mediator, etc. The session once again ended with an interactive Q and A.

Session 3 – Pascal Comvalius
The next session was taken up by Mr. Pascal Comvalius, a Dutch certified mediator, who specializes in family-related cases. He took the audience through different family disputes and explained how each dispute affects the family dynamics in different ways. He also explains how the clients are at most times under the influence of their emotions. He then went on to talk about the relationship cycle that can be used to begin a mediation process for family disputes. A video was shown to the audience to get them to understand the situation of Forced Choice of children in divorce. He says that “As a mediator, you try to bring the parties to a business style relationship with written rules.” Further, he displayed a chart depicting the mediator tree. Later, he addressed the topic of fairness and asked the audience what fairness means to them. After this, he explained what personal attributes a mediator must have when dealing with family matters: attributes such as intelligence, optimism, creativity, and patience. He also addressed selective attention and how biases are manifested. The perception was also a facet that was explained by Mr. Pascal. For negotiating parties, perception matters, and thus they see issues in their own different ways. He further went on to display a video to explain what empathy is. Later, he also discussed the 6 channels of communication including the emotional and cognitive parts of communication

Session 4 – Victor Berger
All the way from down under, Mr. Victor Berger who has over 45 years of litigation experience was the host of the last session. He spoke on the precautions to be taken in drafting settlement agreements. The session began with a brief introduction on what an agreement is and what one should contain, drafting of terms for each contentious issue. He mentioned the importance of frank and open discussions by mediators and the most important was that of taking optimum care of the confidentiality between the parties. He included the topic of the boundary of liability irrespective of what form of mediation or what legislative protection is binding over there. He went on to talk about the scope of exposure of liability that can befall due to any breach of contract or the committing of any tort. The session ended with an Interactive Q and A session.