ADR Section: Facilitating Group Dynamics & Conflicts Webinar

When:  Jun 23, 2020 from 12:00 PM to 01:30 PM (ET)

Register online

Cost: ADR Section members—$10, Law students—$10; All other registrants—$40

Interested in expanding your ADR practice? Ready to put your peace-making skills to use outside the litigation arena? If you answered either question, “yes,” this program is for you! Learn to facilitate conflict within work groups, among coworkers or team mates, board members and sister organizations where conflict has disrupted group dynamics.

Groups are most productive, of course, when members understand one another, get along, and communicate effectively. When groups, whether at work, in church or elsewhere, fall into conflict, however, destructive dynamics reduce morale, retard productivity, reduce the quality or work product, and suppress the organization's ability to achieve common goals.

Learn to assess the causes of group conflict, bring the appropriate resources to bear, gain participant confidence, establish trust, build effective channels of communication, and coach individuals to engage more constructively.

Join three experienced and well-respected group conflict facilitators in this highly practical, nuts and bolts program featuring Tracy Allen, Barbara Johannessen, and Mike Nowakowski, moderated by Shel Stark.

Johannessen.jpgBarbara A. Johannessen, president of Mediation Specialists, Inc., provides a broad range of conflict resolution services (i.e., mediation, arbitration, facilitation, conflict coaching, and training) to agencies, organizations, and individuals. She serves as a contract mediator for the EEOC, the U.S.P.S., and Michigan’s Vocational Rehabilitation Services. She is approved in the state of Michigan to provide 40-hour general civil mediation training. She appears on court rosters throughout Michigan for general civil, probate, and domestic relations mediation. Ms. Johannessen is a member in good standing of the state bars of Michigan and California. She was the recipient of the SBM ADR Section Distinguished Service Award in 2009 and the SE Michigan ACR Chapter’s Pioneer Award in 2012. Ms. Johannessen is an adjunct faculty member at Wayne State University and WSU Law School and former adjunct faculty member of University of Detroit Mercy School of Law.

nowakowksi.jpgMichael G. Nowakowski is a mediator, arbitrator, attorney, and instructor with more than four decades of experience in labor relations and employment matters. Mr. Nowakowski has been involved in the traditional negotiation of collective bargaining agreements as well as the newer forms of collaborative bargaining. The resolution of disputes through mediation and the prevention of them through training, education, and relationship building has been his focus in working for the FMCS in Washington, D.C.; Cleveland, Ohio; and Detroit, Michigan. He now serves as a mediator/arbitrator/trainer in a private capacity.

Mr. Nowakowski is a member of the State Bar of Michigan, a former chairperson of its Labor and Employment Law Section, a member of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Section (and former council member), and past president of the Detroit Chapter of the Industrial Relations Research Association (now LERA). He also served on the advisory board for the EEOC/ADR program in Detroit, the ICLE Mediation Advisory Board, and has been certified as a mediator for the Wayne and Oakland County circuit courts. Mr. Nowakowski also served on the board (and as past president) of the Association for Conflict Resolution (Southeast Michigan Chapter), the Dispute Resolution Association of Michigan, and was the chairman of the Oakland County Bar Association’s ADR Committee. Mr. Nowakowski has mediated over 1,000 labor and employment disputes in more than 40 years and has been named as one of the Best Lawyers in America–ADR.

His training and teaching experience include serving as an adjunct faculty member of several colleges and universities teaching courses in negotiation, employment relations law, alternative dispute resolution, labor relations, collective bargaining and labor law, and employment regulations and benefits. He has been involved in the training of mediators for community dispute resolution centers in Oakland, Saginaw, and Detroit; and he has trained mediators for Chrysler Corporation’s consumer/dealer dispute resolution program and in Europe for the Polish government.

nowakowksi.jpgTracy L. Allen is a full-time nationally and internationally recognized conflict management specialist and neutral ADR provider and teacher. As a business, commercial, and tax attorney, she now provides ADR and conflict management training, design, prevention, and resolution services throughout the world.

As a fulltime neutral, Ms. Allen mediates and arbitrates a variety of commercial matters including corporate, real estate, financial, health care, employment, securities, and international disputes. For more than 20 years, she has serviced individuals, businesses, governmental agencies, and international corporations as a conflict specialist. Ms. Allen has also served as an arbitrator and mediator in mass claims and class action matters.

Ms. Allen writes and teaches extensively throughout the world in her areas of expertise. She is a distinguished professor of conflict management at Lipscomb University and serves as an adjunct professor at Pepperdine School of Law Straus Institute. Ms. Allen has authored numerous articles and training materials on ADR for neutrals, advocates, judges, and service providers. She has also lectured and coauthored ADR materials on specific subject matter topics such as real estate, healthcare, tax, securities, employment, business separations, and cross-cultural teaching. She presents frequently to numerous professional organizations and academic institutions. She is a leading teacher of ADR in the United States and for several international organizations.

Ms. Allen has been listed in Who's Who in international mediation, Best Lawyers in America and SuperLawyers since 2000. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan (B.A. high honors) and Wayne State University Law School Q.D. cum laude; L.L.M. taxation).

nowakowksi.jpgSheldon J. Stark is a member of the National Academy of Distinguished Neutrals, a distinguished fellow with the International Academy of Mediators, and an employment law panelist for the American Arbitration Association. He is also a member of the Professional Resolution Experts of Michigan (PREMi). He is past chair of the council of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Section of the State Bar and formerly chaired the Skills Action Team. Mr. Stark was a distinguished visiting professor at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law from August 2010 through May 2012, when he stepped down to focus on his ADR practice. He is the recipient of the Labor and Employment Law Section’s Distinguished Service Award and the State Bar Representative Assembly Michael Franck Award.


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