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April 2019 President’s Message from Angela J. Reddock-Wright, Esq.

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Dear SCMA Colleagues:

Now that tax season is over, we can start enjoying Spring (minus the allergies 😊) and soon coming Summer!

SCMA had a great kick-off to Spring with our inaugural “How I Made It” webinar series held on March 27, 2019. Many thanks to our guest Deborah Vey Voda-Hamilton for sharing her insights on building a successful mediation practice, and to SCMA Board Member Susan Guthrie for hosting the webinar. You still can purchase and view this video by clicking here and scrolling to the bottom of the page to sign up! We look forward to presenting our next “How I Made It” webinar in July 2019.

We also had a successful membership survey drive. Thanks to each of you who responded. We look forward to sharing the results of the survey and next steps in the coming weeks. Many thanks to SCMA President-Elect Andy Shelby and our Communications and Membership Committee for spearheading this effort.

We are deep in planning for our annual Employment Mediation Institute on May 18, 2019 and our Family Mediation Institute on June 7 and 8, 2019. Please be sure to register for these events and to catch the Early Bird specials! Many thanks to SCMA Members Samantha Blake and Laura McGee, and SCMA Board Members Richard Erhard, Terri Breer, Susan Guthrie, and Mark Lemke for their leadership in planning these events.

Congrats to SCMA Member Marcie Kraft and SCMA Board Member Kelly Morford for their success in kicking off our Camarillo/Ventura Professional Development Group (PDG) on March 27, 2019. They had a great first meeting and are busy planning for the next meeting on Wednesday, May 29, 2019.

Additional kudos to SCMA Members Anthony Farenga and Royal Lord for planning our first Inland Empire PDG event on April 4, 2019, in partnership with the Upland Unified School District. A big “high-five” to our San Diego PDG on a successful March PDG program featuring SCMA Members Harold Coleman and Debra Dupree from the American Arbitration Association.

Finally, we continue to be excited about our Annual Conference, scheduled for November 1 and 2, 2019 at the LA Grand Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. We are happy to announce Professor Carrie Menkel-Meadow as our L. Randolph Lowry Award Honoree and Friday night keynote speaker. We look forward to having Professor Leonard L. Riskin as our Cloke-Millen Peacemaker Award Honoree and Saturday keynote speaker. Could the line-up be any better? Look out for more details about the Annual Conference in the coming weeks.

Thank you for your membership in SCMA. Please feel free to reach out to me personally if I can answer any questions you may have or to chat about SCMA and the mediation field generally. My contact information is angela@reddocklaw.com or (213) 996-8474. Thank you for the opportunity to serve as your SCMA President.

Yours in Service,
Angela Reddock-Wright
SCMA President 2019

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President-Elect Andy Shelby Speaks at L.A. City Hall for Mediation Awareness

Many thanks to our SCMA President-Elect Andy Shelby for representing SCMA at the Annual Mediation Awareness Day at Los Angeles City Hall yesterday, March 27, 2019. He was joined by several legal and other leaders in the mediation field including The Honorable Kevin Brazile, Presiding Justice of the Los Angeles Superior Courts.

Andy reports that it was a great day for SCMA and the mediation profession as a whole.

To view Andy’s remarks along with the remarks of others, click on the link below. Andy’s remarks begin at 109.25

http://lacity.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=130&clip_id=18894

 

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March 2019 President’s Message from Angela J. Reddock-Wright, Esq.

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Dear SCMA Colleagues:

I can’t believe it’s March already! It seems like yesterday we were all wishing one another “Happy Holidays” and toasting the New Year. As much as I lament how quickly the year is passing, I welcome the excitement and energy that the month of March brings: springtime, the California poppies, the migration of the painted lady butterflies, St. Patrick’s Day and Mardi Gras celebrations, followed by a recommitment to our New Year’s goals and resolutions. Of course, March is framed by the celebration of women with International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month. Here’s to the women of SCMA!

Among the many things that excite me about the month of March are the many great events happening with SCMA. Like Oprah says, here are a few of my favorite things:

  • SCMA Inaugural “How I Made It” Webinar Series – On Wednesday, March 27, 2019 from 12:00 -1:00 p.m., we will kick-off our inaugural “How I Made it Series.” Our first guest is Mediator Deborah Vey Voda-Hamilton who has established a successful practice mediating animal disputes. SCMA Board Member Susan Guthrie will host this webinar. We only have 100 registration slots available. Register Now!
  • Annual Employment Mediation Institute – Our Annual Employment Mediation Institute is shaping up nicely. This event will take place on Saturday, May 18, 2019 at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law beginning at 9:00 a.m. The theme for the event is “Echoes of the Roar: How #MeToo Continues to Impact Employment Mediators.” Our keynote speakers will be David White, National Executive President of the Screen Actors Guild of America, and SCMA Past President Jan Schau, followed by several dynamic panelists. Thank you SCMA Member Samantha Blake and SCMA Board Member Mark Lemke for your leadership in planning this event. Be on the lookout for the Early Bird registration announcement. Learn More Here!
  • Annual Family Mediation Institute – The planning for our 2nd Annual Family Mediation Institute is off to a roaring start. This event will take place on Friday, June 6 and Saturday, June 7, 2019 at the Doubletree Hotel by Hilton, Santa Ana-Orange County Airport location. The theme for the event is “Empowering Mediators Into the 2020’s and Beyond.” Many thanks to SCMA Board Members Terri Breer and Susan Guthrie for their leadership in planning this event. Be on the lookout for he Early Bird registration announcement. Learn More Here!
  • Professional Development Groups (PDGs) – Our Professional Development Groups continue to be a leading member benefit. We are excited to kick-off the Camarillo/Ventura PDG on March 27, 2018, from 6:30 – 8:00 p.m., at the Old New York Deli & Bakery Co. in Camarillo, CA. Many thanks to SCMA Member Marcie Kraft and SCMA Board Member Kelly Morford for their leadership in starting this PDG. Kudos to each of our PDG leaders for all you do to make our PDGs a success. Learn More Here!
  • SCMA Membership Survey – Our membership survey drive was a success! Many thanks to everyone who responded to the survey. We look forward to reviewing your feedback and using it to ensure we are building the organization in a way that provides value to our members. Congratulations to the winners of the survey raffle –Carole Aragon, Al Jerome, Sayer Macneil and Olga Sanchez.
  • 31st Annual Mediation Conference – Led by SCMA President-Elect Andy Shelby, the planning of our Annual Conference is well underway. The Annual Conference will take place November 1-2, 2019 at the LA Grand Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Our Cloke-Millen award honoree and keynote speaker is Leonard L. Riskin, the creator of the “Riskin Grid” which has shaped each of our mediation practices. Many thanks to SCMA Board Member Richard Erhard and SCMA Past President Jack Goetz for facilitating this opportunity. Learn More Here!
  • Mentorship Program – Our mentorship program enrolled nine participants this spring. Many thanks to SCMA Board Member Mitch Tarighati and SCMA Past Board Member David Levaton for their commitment and leadership to the mentorship program. We are also grateful to Lucie Barron, Founder & President of ADR Services, Inc., for hosting our mentee group at the ADR Services office this year. Learn More Here!
  • Partnerships – We continue to build on our partnerships with our sister organizations Kids Managing Conflict and MC3. We also are excited about our partnership with the American Arbitration Association (AAA) and the American Bar Association (ABA) Dispute Resolution Section.
    • The ABA has extended an invitation to SCMA Members to attend its Dispute Resolution Spring Conference, which will take place from April 10 – 13, 2019 at the Hyatt Regency in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Learn More Here!  To register for the conference, click here. The SCMA discount code is DRSPRING20. Many thanks to SCMA Board Member Ana Sambold for helping make this connection on behalf of SCMA.
  • SCMA Administration – Administratively, SCMA is tracking well budget-wise, and we are working diligently to enhance our backend administrative operations to ensure we provide the best support to our members.

There are many other programs and networking events we have in store for our members for the rest of the year. I hope you will join us in these and the many other great things happening with SCMA.

If you would like to get more involved, please let us know – there are plenty of opportunities to serve on a committee, as well as in other ways. We are always looking for “a few good people” to join in making our organization and profession better.
In closing and in the spirit of Saint Patrick’s Day, I leave you with an Irish well-wish:

May love and laughter light your days,
and warm your heart and home.
May good and faithful friends be yours,
wherever you may roam.
May peace and plenty bless your world
with joy that long endures.
May all life’s passing seasons
bring the best to you and yours!

Have a great March and beginning of Spring and thank you for the opportunity to serve as your SCMA President.

Yours in service,
Angela Reddock-Wright
SCMA President 2019

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How Black Professionals are Empowering Black Male High School Students

This article originally appeared on Daily Breeze on February 21, 2019.

USC law professor Jason Harper gave some pointed advice for any job seeker.

First, make a good first impression. Offer a firm handshake. Say a few things about yourself. Ask the person about themselves.

But this was not just about getting a job. The Thursday, Feb. 21, event, “Defying the Odds” sponsored by Kinecta Federal Credit Union in El Segundo, was focused on encouraging young African American men to attend college by connecting them with professional African Americans who could help show them the way.

There has been a steady decline in African American men transitioning successfully into and through college in recent years. In 2016, African American enrollment in higher education declined by 6.6 percent in the two years prior, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

The skills shared by the 12 professionals included tools that students might not be taught in school – avoiding credit card debt, choosing a major and conducting yourself in a job interview. At one point during the event, the men even taught the students how to wear a neck tie.

De’Jon Clemmons, a senior at Leuzinger High School in Lawndale, who was among the 30 students who attended from Leuzinger, Hawthorne High School and Lawndale High School, took the messages to heart, saying he understood how important it was to network.

“It’s good to network because it can help you in the long run,” said Clemmons, who plans to attend Arizona State University in the fall and later become an anesthesiologist.

“The district is always trying to find ways to connect our students to the workforce,” said Centinela Valley Unified School District Superintendent Gregory O’Brien. “It’s a way to help our students get a leg up and a step forward in the right direction.”

Later, when addressing the students, O’Brien said opportunities like the one presented Thursday to meet inspiring professionals did not come along every day.

“Please see this opportunity for what it is,” O’Brien said. “This can change your life.”

Curglin Robertson, director of Upward Bound Program at California State University Long Beach, said what holds many students back from attending college are myths that they can’t afford it or they don’t have the grades necessary.

The Upward Bound Program works with 210 students throughout Los Angeles County on a bi-weekly basis to help them get into college.

“The idea is to motivate them, to get them the information that they can do it,” Robertson said. “If you are able to graduate from high school you will be able to graduate from college.”

Jordan Veazey, a 12th grader at Leuzinger High School, said what stuck with him was the importance of passion. Veazey wants to go into the music industry.

“You have got to have love for what you do,” Veazey said. “Because if you don’t, you’re not going to succeed. You succeed more in what you’re passionate about.”

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February 2019 President’s Message from Angela J. Reddock-Wright, Esq.

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Dear SCMA Colleagues:

Continuing in the tradition of Immediate SCMA Past President Dr. Jack R. Goetz and other past presidents, I am excited to issue the SCMA President’s Monthly Message. The purpose of the President’s Message is to provide SMCA members with updates and highlights of SCMA’s programs and activities.

Our year is off to a roaring start, grounded by our three-year Strategic Plan, facilitated and written by Jack Goetz during his year as SCMA President.  Among other things, the Strategic Plan positions SCMA to continue fulfilling its mission of promoting mediation, excellence in the practice of mediation, and community awareness of the mediation process through education, dialogue, and outreach. Core to our Strategic Plan is a commitment to ensuring that we continue to meet and service the needs of our members.

To this end, we soon will be sending out our 2019 SCMA Membership Survey, led by Andy Shelby, SCMA President-Elect, and Susan Guthrie, SCMA Board Member and Chair of the Communications Committee.  Please be on the lookout for the survey in your email box by the end of this month and set aside a few minutes to provide us with your feedback. This will assist us in designing programs and other activities that align with our members’ goals and interests.

Looking ahead, we are very excited about the events we have planned for this year. Please schedule them now so you have time to get involved. Here’s what is coming up:

  • Monthly Professional Development Groups (PDGs) – Our new Downtown Los Angeles, Orange County, and San Diego PDGs are off to a great start!  Be on the lookout for new PDG’s forming soon in Camarillo and the Inland Empire.  Also consider visiting our longstanding San Fernando Valley, South Bay, and West Los Angeles PDG’s. The Pasadena PDG will be back soon.
  • March 2019 – The kick-off of our online “How I Made It” series featuring successful mediators in various subject matter fields.
  • May 18, 2019 – Annual SCMA Employment Mediation Institute, chaired by SCMA Member Samantha Blake and Board Member Mark Lemke.
  • June 7 & 8, 2019 – 2nd Annual SCMA Family Mediation Institute, chaired by SCMA Board Member Terri Breer.
  • August 1, 2019 –Summer Soiree & Networking Event, chaired by SCMA Members Doug Spoors and Marvin Whistler.
  • November 1 & 2, 2019 – SCMA 31st Annual Mediation Conference, chaired by SCMA President-Elect Andy Shelby, and featuring Professor Leonard Riskin as our keynote speaker and Cloke-Millen Award winner.  Returning as our Advanced Track provider will be the American Arbitration Association.
  • We also look forward to working with our sister organizations MC3 and Kids Managing Conflict on future programing and collaborations.

Additionally, we have several other webinars and programs in the works so be sure to follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter for regular updates.

Finally, I would like to thank Professor Stephanie Bell Blondell, Assistant Professor of Law and Associate Director of the Pepperdine Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, for kicking-off our year with a great seminar on mediation ethics. Many thanks to Pepperdine for hosting this event, and to Richard Erhard, SCMA Board Member and Program Chair, for his leadership in planning the event, and Executive Director Anne Sawyer for her logistics planning and support.

As we celebrate this season of love, it is my sincere wish that each of you are doing work that you love.  If that is not the case, I encourage you to take time to reflect on what you are doing to discover ways to love it more.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve as your SCMA President.

Yours in service,
Angela Reddock-Wright

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The NFL’s Moral Disengagement

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This article originally appeared on PGP Mediation’s Website on January 30, 2019.

Having attended both undergraduate and law school at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, I am a Saints fan and like many, watched the game between the Saints and the Los Angeles Ram including the quite controversial pass interference and helmet to helmet “non-call” occurring with less than two minutes to go in the game: a game changer that cost the Saints a chance to go to the Super Bowl. Like all Saints fans, I believe the Saints were robbed of the win and should be the ones going to the Super Bowl, not the LA Rams.

Recently, I attended a seminar presented on ethical fading in mediation by Professor Stephanie Bell Blondell, Associate Director and Assistant Professor of Law and Practice at Strauss Institute of Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University. During her presentation she discussed the notion of moral disengagement, first espoused by Albert Bandura (Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm and Live with Themselves, New York, Macmillan 2016)

Evidently, there are approximately eight different ways to morally disengage: moral justification, euphemistic labelling, advantageous comparison, displacement of responsibility, diffusion of responsibility, dehumanization, and moral muteness. (Id. at Prof. Blondell.)

As explained by Celia Moore:

Moral disengagement refers to eight interrelated cognitive mechanisms that allow us to sidestep our internalized moral standards and behave immorally without feeling attendant distress. In social cognitive theory, internal controls only work effectively when they are activated. The mechanisms of moral disengagement decouple our internal standards from how we construe our behavior, rendering them ineffective. As an example, imagine Sam has an internal standard that prohibits theft, but has taken a newspaper without paying for it from Starbucks. Moral disengagement mechanisms help Sam construe taking the newspaper as no big deal (distortion of consequences), believe that everyone takes small things like a paper sometimes (diffusion of responsibility), that taking the paper is tiny compared to others’ violations (advantageous comparison), or that he’s seen Starbucks employees take copies of the paper, so why shouldn’t he (displacement of responsibility)? He could think that in the grand scheme of things, being an informed citizen is more important than paying for the paper (moral justification). He could even plan on leaving the paper in the cafĂ© when he was finished with it, so really, he was just “borrowing” it (euphemistic labeling). He could think that Starbucks is a large heartless corporation that won’t notice the missing paper (dehumanization), or even deserves having the paper taken from it because it charges so much for their coffee (attribution of blame). These mechanisms facilitate understanding his behavior as unrelated to his internal standard against theft. Thus, he can leave the store, paper under arm, confident in the belief that he’s done nothing wrong. (Moore, Celia. (2015). Moral disengagement. Current Opinion in Psychology.)

(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281332371_Moral_disengagement)

So- what does this have to do with the controversial “non-call”? Quite a lot. Some fans have sued the NFL over this bad call. The NFL has filed pleadings to remove the matter to federal court. In those pleadings, the NFL states that a rematch of the game due to this bad call could cost the league “more than $100 million” dollars because among other things, it would mean delaying the Super Bowl. (https://www.foxnews.com/sports/nfl-says-rams-saints-rematch-could-cost-millions.print)

The NFL’s position strikes me as a bit of moral disengagement and more specifically, moral justification and advantageous comparison; it justifies its decision to do nothing about the bad call (other than to monetarily penalize the Rams player) based on economics: money provides the ethical fading, here. If the ethical road is taken, the consequences would be severe. Among other things, there would be no Super Bowl this Sunday, causing an economic loss not only to the NFL, but to all of the fans in terms of air fare and hotel rooms as well as to the city of Atlanta and all of its hotels, restaurants, shops, and even sidewalk vendors. The economic consequences of NOT having the Super Bowl as scheduled are so huge, that ethical fading and moral disengagement is justified. No doubt, there would also be goodwill and reputation damage to the NFL (and probably some breach of contract lawsuits against the NFL by the many who agreed to render various services during the Super Bowl.) The consequences are huge, leading to a moral justification of continuing as planned and as if the “non-call” never happened.

Beware of the slippery slope of moral disengagement. It can cause you to do things you thought, you would never do!

Just something to think about.

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SCMA’s Mediation Ethics Workshop was a Success!

The SCMA would like to thank everyone that came out to our first program of 2019 – “When Good Mediators Make Bad Decisions: A Look at Ethical Fading in Mediation.” Professor Stephanie Blondell, Associate Director for Dispute Resolution at the Strauss Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine School of Law, led this interactive program to over 40 attendees. 

Attendees commented that it was a “sophisticated program provided in a digestible format” and “vital to building others’ faith in the ADR community.”

Thank you Professor Blondell for an energetic and enlightening session. Thank you Pepperdine for hosting the event and for your support of SCMA.

Be sure to Save the Date for our upcoming events, detailed here: https://www.scmediation.org/2019-save-the-date/

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