Interview with ACS-CHAL Lawyer-Scientist Tad A. Nelson

Mediate This! Podcast:

Hi, my name is Sydney Mitchell. Hi, I’m Matthew Brickman, Florida Supreme court mediator. Welcome to the Mediate This! Podcast where we discuss everything mediation and conflict resolution.

(00:14):
Everyone. Welcome to the show. I am joined here today by, Tad Nelson. So welcome to the show. Oh, glad to be here, man. So, so happy to be here talking to you on a Sunday morning. Yeah. So you’re a criminal attorney, plus you’ve got a degree in forensics, like, uh, science, um, and you’ve been doing family law. You’ve been at this like 30 plus years. You’ve got your own firm, and I believe you’re in the Houston area, correct?I am in the, uh, just south of Houston, a little area called Clear Lake down here, closer to the, uh, to the, to the Bayou, to the Bay. Okay. Uh, I grew, I grew up on Galveston Island, which is a barrier island, you know, 48 miles south of Houston. And pretty much other than going to get educated, I haven’t left here, you know?

(01:00):
Yeah. Well, and, and you actually got educated in Florida, right? I actually got my last degree, which was a, uh, master’s in forensic toxicology from the University of Florida. Yes. Okay. And where did you go to law school? I went, I went to University of Texas undergrad, then went to, uh, went up to school up in Michigan for, for law school. Okay. So you, so you’ve been educated in Texas, Florida, and Michigan. Yes, sir. Alright. Um, so talk to me a little bit about the law. Um, you primarily done what area of law? You know,I’ve done a little all of it.I do a lot of DWI. Okay. You know, a lot of, lot of, we call it DWI down here. Most of the states call it DUI, but, uh, same, same thing. We have both here in Florida. Oh, yeah.

(01:48):
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. So I, I’ve always done a lot of that. I’ve also done a lot of the sex cases and a lot of the, um, you know, the kitty porn cases in the sense of anything that’s gonna have more of a scientific or a technological kind of base to it. Uh, another one of the things I did, I never finished it, but I got about two thirds of the way through a, um, a master’s in Information Systems. Uh, I live here in the Clear Lake area, and University of Houston has a campus literally three miles from my house, so, okay. You know, for the first, you know, from age 18 to probably 50, I was either teaching college or going to college in some former fashion. I taught for a little while down at Galveston College. Uh, so I’ve always been kind of in the, I I’ve always been kind of in the educational kind of, you know, thing I, you know, trying to better myself.

(02:40):
Right. So that’s how I kind of got into that. Right, right. So, um, so talk to me about the, the science portion that, I mean, because you, you, you came to Florida, got your degree in science. How did that help in all the different areas, whether it was the technology, family, criminal, DUID, you know, like how did that all tie in together? Well, you know, several ways, let’s, let’s start with DWI and DWI, you know, you’re looking at, you know, the blood, when you do blood testing, you’re looking at gas chromatography. That is the, you know, the gold standard of separation science, you know, and then when you’re looking at, um, you know, you’re looking at different sciences for like the portable breath machine, which is just complete nonsense fueled cell technology. Uh, and then you have, you know, um, infrared spec, which is being used in the, just the breath testing machines.

(03:35):
So ultimately, all these machines are, they’re not infallible much. Like, you know, they’re built by human beings and they’re not infallible. Yeah. So if a human, if a, if a human made it, a human can bypass it. Exactly. And so that’s where that came. It’s just, you know, from doing all the, the, the stuff, it just, the times that the, you know, the chemist or the, the experts for the government would come to court and, you know, before I knew these things, they could kind of roll over us. You know, they throw out a couple big, big words, you know, four or five syllables in the word. You know, you just kind of throw your hands up. You don’t know what the heck that means. And the next thing you know, you know, you’re, you’re staring there and you, you can’t explain something that really doesn’t feel right to you.

(04:15):
So ultimately, you know, like anybody that doesn’t like losing, you start, you know, you start going out there and, you know, learning the lingo, let’s talk the talk. So I can, I at least wanna be in the game. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna get, not guiltys around the clock, although I get more of ’em. But it definitely means that you’re not gonna slip one five hole on me, you know? Right, right. So I have a question for you speaking of that, because a lot of times, so I do primarily family divorce mediation. Right. And so there’s a lot of times where, you know, and, and it was interesting, 2020 just, you know, for everybody, it just wrecked everything with covid and lockdowns. And one of the things that we saw Spike post 2020 were DUIs, DWIs in divorce cases. And then because, you know, people are on lockdown, they couldn’t go anywhere.

(05:09):
They were bored, and so they were drinking, and then they sort of, and so then they sort of be, you know, that sort of carried over. They open up the world, I’m still drinking, except now I’m trying to be a functioning alcoholic, and now I’m driving and I’m going to work and I’m getting pulled over, or, you know, now I’m getting divorced, and a wife is going, look, you know, I want safety for the kids. And so a lot of times what we’re having to recommend in those cases is, you know, you had mentioned like a breathalyzer, so, so we’re having to recommend, um, you know, things like, uh, you know, the, the, the portable breathalyzers. Yeah. Um, and, and whatnot. How accurate are those, you know, because there’s, there’s, there’s, there’s a company we use a lot of times, you know, at least recommended in Florida, where they’ve got the little portable one.

(05:58):
It’s got the facial recognition, they blow in it and whatnot. So from a scientific standpoint, like if we’re recommending those as lawyers and as mediators for these parties, and then they’re supposed to be giving like, real time data, and we, and we build into the agreements, you’ve gotta do it at like seven in the morning, three in the afternoon, seven at night to make sure that the kids are safe. How accurate are these? Are they, are they, I mean, I, I guess, are they good, you know, uh, in your experience? Well, you know, that’s a, that’s a great point. And, you know, when I have a person, let’s say a felony dwi, I, right. You know, we have to put the same in tox alo, that’s what we call ’em down here. And Tox Lock is the company Yep. That has the majority of the, of the, I I bet they have a 80%, you know, uh, market share down here in Texas, in the Houston area.

(06:49):
So in tox, ALO, they’re good for what they’re there for. I mean, I don’t think you could bring it to court as a scientific, as forensically valuable to, to, to convict the person of A DWI, but you can definitely use it to tell if they’re consuming alcohol, you know, when they’re not supposed to. ’cause let’s just say if you’re on a bond, you know, if you’re on bond for dwi, I down here, you can’t consume any alcohol. So if it’s showing up, got it. You know, that’s bad enough. Uh, you know, and, and I, I think that, you know, I don’t see it used that much in my family law practice. Uh, okay. But it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s actually a great idea because you can monitor, you know, and I think it’s, it’s accurate and in the sense of what you’re talking about, you know, I I, I, I agree with you.

(07:37):
It’s a great tool to use, you know, um, not infallible. Yeah. But that’s not what you need and what you’re talking about. You’re just trying to prove a point and keep somebody, keep kids safe. Right. And, and, and like the ones, um, uh, I’m, I’m trying to think of the name. It’ll come to me, but, but like, one of the ones that we, we, we usually recommend, they’ve got two different programs. One where, um, they’ve gotta brief, you know, we set up, they’ve gotta brief constantly, like with or without the kids, they’re not allowed to consume alcohol at all. Right. Then we’ve got ones where then it’s like, look, you just can’t be intoxicated when you have the kids. So we build it in to where like, okay, you know, they have to breathe 24 hours prior to their times sharing, starting, and then morning, afternoon, and evening during their time sharing.

(08:30):
And then if they wanna go binge drink when they don’t have the kids, that’s on them. Like, look, they’re over 21. If they want to drink, they fine. They can legally do it. Just, we’re trying to create a protective, uh, you know, mechanism to keep the kids safe. But, you know, sometimes, sometimes we get, um, you know, and, and I’ve actually, you know, as a mediator, they bring them to me in mediation, or we’re negotiating and they’ve got false positives, you know? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And it, it’s not always a hundred percent, but it’s, they, they seem to be pretty good and Yeah. They’re, they’re not using ’em to, you know, for like bonds and stuff. We’re just using ’em for us Sure. As a timeshare and safety mechanism. Yeah. And, and that’s perfect. And that’s, you, you hit the nail on the head. I mean, it, it’s accomplishing its goal.

(09:19):
And we do that very similar here, you know, no alcohol eight hours before your visitation, you know, no, no alcohol during visitation. Okay. Where on the cases where there’s an issue, same kind of thing you’re doing, and, uh, you know, it’s, yeah. It’s, it’s very prophylactic. It, it, it accomplishes its goal. Yeah. It really does. Yeah. I mean, think about it, if you’re the, you know, if you’re the type of person that has to, you know, be monitored like that, you know, if somebody brings it up pro, you probably do need the monitoring. Monitoring Yeah. Monitor. Yeah. I mean, if, if, if it rises to that level, we’ve gotta have some sort of mechanism in place, you know? Yeah. And, and, and there’s, um, the interlock, I don’t know if they, you know, how, how those work versus the ones that, that, that, that sometimes we use, but, you know, some of ’em connect wirelessly to your phone.

(10:13):
Some of them have mm-hmm <affirmative>. Built their, their own built in technology. Some of ’em have the facial recognition, so like, I couldn’t give it to you. And they do it. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. It’s like, no, it, it’s facial recognizing May, and you know, they, they’ve got their subscriptions and stuff trying to help, you know, and, and even more than I, I remember years ago, like they had the mechanisms like, uh, just, just to drive, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Like you can blow, unlock, you know, unlock the, uh, steering column so you can drive cars. But this isn’t about driving a car. This is about creating safety during time sharing. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And that’s the same kind of stuff we have here in Texas, you know, um, all the ones for the driving, you know, they all take a picture because it, you know, and the majority of the people that I represent, especially on the DWIs for example, um, you know, they may have one car and, you know, if the wife is gonna drive the hu you know, if the husband’s the one charged with the dwi, I, the wife may drive that car.

(11:13):
Right. So we have to take a picture of who’s, you know, doing it. But, you know, the one thing, uh, and the way it works, you know, here is, is the company, the minute you blow and it’s over, you know, there’s an email being sent to the court. Yes. And, and I’m probably in front of the judge that week explaining why my guy’s consuming alcohol and trying to justify why he should remain on bond. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. And that happens regularly. Regularly. Wow. Wow. But, you know, from mediation, a person that’s, that’s an alcoholic, it’s a tough, it’s a tough, you know, a tough get to get away from alcohol. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I read somewhere that, um, the average like, you know, ’cause pe people are, you know, it’s, it’s a tough disease to overcome. And, you know, rehab after rehab, after rehab, after rehab, <laugh> and I, I, it was somewhere years ago.

(12:08):
I, I think, I think it was, uh, I think it was Dr. Drew Penske was, uh, he had, he had a show, um, that I absolutely love celebrity rehab, uh, years and years and years ago. And it was good. And I think it was Dr. Drew that had said like, the average person, like it’s over 10 times in rehab before they finally kick it. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s tough to overcome. It’s not just, oh, I’ve got a, you know, I’ve gone once or twice and Yeah. I was able to do it. No, it’s a, it’s a hard demon to get off your shoulder. It is. And you know what, and for you probably do in the mediation, you probably feel more like I do, I don’t look at and alcoholic any different than I look at a cancer survivor. Right. You know, it’s a disease.

(12:52):
Yeah. You know, and, you know, and, and it’s so judgmental and so harsh to look at a, at an alcoholic as, as a weak person that just, you know, can’t get their life straight. It’s not that easy people. Yeah. It really isn’t. And you know, when you do think those things, it just shows your ignorance of alcoholism, you know, and, and until you really understand it Yeah. They, they have, they have as much chance of taking care of that as I do, you know, you know, dealing with prostate or some kind of cancer like that. You know, it’s the same exact concept. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, so family law, how much family law do you do? About a third of my practice. Okay. Alright. And so, ’cause you had mentioned like sex cases. What do you do in there? Is it, is it, is that family law or is that criminal law, or both?

(13:44):
Oh, it, it, believe it or not, it, it bleeds over a lot. Bleeds. Yeah. So many of my criminal law cases bleed into the family cases. Um, a lot of times, I mean, the, the common thing I see where they really bleed in is on my, let’s just say I’m involved in a sex case. And a lot of times unfortunately, it’s, it seems like it’s the guy doing more of the problems. And maybe he, he, you know, he marries a white, a girl lady that has children. Somehow or another, he’s abusing one of the children. Right. See that a lot. And that immediately turns into a family law case more times than not. You know, I, you, you know how that goes. Yeah. So that’s kind of where that comes in. You know, that’s, that’s where, you know, where I really see the bleed in between the sex cases and the family law.

(14:32):
’cause obviously, you know, the average person, you know, once that, you know, that, that, that’s a, that’s a line that we can’t go back from, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think everybody inherently knows that. And it, and it should be kind of Yeah. You know, I’m as forgiving a human being as you can find on the planet. But, you know, there’s certain things, you know, that, that it’s tough to go back from. Yeah. Yeah. It’s interesting, um, because, ’cause I work with a lot of attorneys that are criminal, criminal attorneys as well as family attorneys. And, um, a number of ’em have told me years and years ago, they said, you know what, the difference between criminal law and family law is they said criminal law, you meet really bad people on their best behavior. And in family law you meet really good people on their worst behavior.

(15:19):
Uh, it’s so true. Yeah. And it’s, and, and, and like, and, and criminal law, they’re like, you could get a win for someone and you were the greatest person on the planet. Like, for example, like A DUI or something like, oh my gosh, you’re amazing in family law, you can get a win and it’s still, you suck because you didn’t win everything. And it’s like, well, you’re not gonna win everything. And it’s like, you know, so much of it is just managing expectations, right? Oh, absolutely. And you know, the thing is you’re hitting the nail in the head. Our criminal clients are so much more appreciative. Yeah. And, you know, they respect the battle. They respect what we’re doing for them. You, like you said, you cannot please the majority of your family law clients. You just can’t. Yeah. And I tried to start out with the premise that if either side is, is that happy that the system probably didn’t work in family law.

(16:18):
Right. You know? Right. Yeah. And they can’t grasp that. It’s tough because they come in there, you know, unfortunately, so many people in family law want their pound of flesh, you know that. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that’s what really makes it tough, you know, if Yeah. You know, every now and again, I’ll have somebody come in very realistic and, and kind of giving and, you know, but, but more times to not know. Yeah. I had a guy <laugh>, I had guy, oh my gosh. I I was, I was actually shocked. He had, he had, he’d gotten online and left me this horrible review and, and, and I was like, who is this guy? Like, I’m like, who is it? So I went and looked him up exactly what we’re talking about. This was a paternity matter. So this guy had no legal rights. He never married the mom had no legal rights to the child at all under any circumstance.

(17:11):
And she was not the greatest of moms and people. She had some criminal problems. Right. And so in mediation, he was, he was represented by a phenomenal attorney. She was represented by a phenomenal attorney. And he actually, before, this was before Florida in 2023, before the, there was a, there’s a rebuttable presumption of equal timesharing Now, so in a paternity matter, pre 2023, it was like, the most you might be able to get is maybe 40%. If you could get 50, that was pretty awesome. Right. This guy, this guy got shared parental responsibility. So equal decision making and equal time sharing. And the mother waive child support. So this guy’s got 50 50 with his kid, no child support, 50 50 decision making. And because the mother still has equal and he didn’t get majority, I suck. Right. His attorney sucks. She sucks. And it’s like, what?

(18:22):
And so he goes online leaving all this negative about his attorney and about me. And it’s like, just like we’re talking, it’s like you just can’t please him. It’s like you got a win beyond what a judge would’ve ever given you, and you’re still unhappy because you didn’t beat her into the ground. Whereas you started off not even having the legal leg to stand on ’cause you were not legally adjudicated the father. Wow. I, you know what? That’s a new one on me. I haven’t seen you guys, the mediators being beat up with the reviews yet. Oh yeah. You know, I know we get beat up around the clock. Yeah. But I have yet to see that. I mean, <laugh>, that’s so crazy. I mean, I didn’t understand somebody getting mad if you can’t find a settlement, but once you get a settlement, shame on them. I know. Well, oh my God. Especially you get a settlement with an attorney, like Right. You know, I’m a neutral. I don’t have a dog in this fight. I had one recently, dad. It, it was interesting. The mother filed to set aside the agreement claiming that I told her this and I told her this, and I told, and the me and, and she puts in her petition. The mediator told me, the mediator told me. The mediator told me, and the mediator told me. Right.

(19:36):
Well, she was a hundred percent correct, but you’ve gotta understand the context. They didn’t wanna be in the same room. So we’re in caucus. She didn’t have an attorney. The father had an attorney. So what is my job as a mediator to facilitate the conversation, to facilitate the information. So did I tell her Yes, I’m relaying messages going? Well, he says, and his attorney says, what do you say? Okay. And I take it back. So we get the whole thing done and she files a complaint going, well, the mediator told me, and the mediator told me, well, of course I told you there’s nobody else to talk to you, you didn’t have an attorney. Right. And I’m having to relay messages and I’m going, oh my gosh. Like, did you not pay attention to the mediation opening where I said, my job is to facilitate the communication and, and, and help you negotiate.

(20:32):
But yeah, so sometimes in family law, even the mediator gets beat up and it’s like, you just can’t wait. But ha have you found it’s getting worse? It well, in what sense? Getting worse? People, people are just meaner. Well, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So here, here’s what I’ve noticed as a mediator. And I mean, and, and I mean, and I do, I do a lot of mediations. So, so, so for example, I’ll, I, I’ll, I’ll tell you how I’ll tell when, when I say a lot, I’ll just tell you. So last year, so 2024, there are 365 days in a year. There’s 151 actual calendar work days. If you take out the weekends, you take out the holidays. And if somebody would take a two week vacation, like most people do, there’s 151 actual calendar work days. Okay? I did 217 mediations. Wow. And the year before, 238.

(21:37):
So I, I’m busy, right? Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So what I have seen is, at least in Florida, um, about 20% of my business is pro se no attorneys at all. Wow. Now, of those a hundred percent settle a hundred percent. When there’s no attorneys involved, they’re like, look, we want to get through this. Help us get through this, and yeah. We want to be done. We’re not still fighting. Right. Of the other 80%. Um, what’s interesting is a lot of it, Ted goes to the attorney mm-hmm <affirmative>. Because I remember when I, I remember my first day of, I remember my first day of law school, and I remember they told us, you know, we’re gonna teach you how to fight. You’ve gotta win. There is no second place. Now, I was already a certified mediator, and I’m going, no, no, no, no. We can make a win-win.

(22:37):
And they’re like, no, <laugh>, you know, attorneys know there’s no, like, you’re gonna win or you’re gonna lose. Right. There’s a declared winner, there’s a declared loser. And they, but they said, you’ve got two jobs. Two of your most important jobs is, number one, educate your client on the law. And number two, manage their expectations. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. As a mediator, those two I see fail all the time because people will come into mediation with their attorneys, and you read the pleadings and they’re going, we want sole decision making. We want a hundred, we want majority time sharing. And it’s like, but the law says, the statute says the court shall order it’s shared. And the court says there’s a rebuttable presumption of 50 50. And if you wanna overcome the rebuttable presumption, there’s 20 factors in the statute, you have to hit all 20 or it’s 50 50. Well, so why would you even put that in a pleading, especially when you have no allegations. Like you’re not saying they’re abusive, they’re drunk, they’ve got a history of DUIs, they’ve got criminal. No, I’m the mom.

(23:55):
Manage the client’s expectations. And when there’s not a management of expectations, they come in asking for things, and then you’re fighting to get them to zero, get ’em to neutral of this is what the statute says. The problem though is when the attorneys don’t manage the, the client’s expectations and mediation mm-hmm <affirmative>. The attorney is now having to backtrack. Sure. And going, well, but yeah. You know what? The mediator’s, right, if we look at the statute, it does say, why didn’t you manage their expectations from the beginning? Because here’s the problem. Now the clients mm-hmm <affirmative>. Have unrealistic expectations and they’re starting to lose faith in their advocate. Oh, absolutely. Which then, which then causes them to have unrealistic expectations, fight every step of the way, maybe even not resolve and go in front of a judge. And even when a judge goes, it shared parental at 50 50, oh, the judge didn’t like me.

(24:53):
My attorney was awful. Like, every, everybody’s bad when everybody is not bad. And I think that’s where people are behaving worse. It’s because they have unrealistic expectations from the beginning. Yeah. That’s what I’m seeing. So yes, people are getting worse, but I think it’s because they have unrealistic expectations. I think you can look at our political environment, you have unrealistic expectations, if you like a democracy is where you have two different sides. And it’s okay to have two different sides. And we’re gonna have conversations, and we’re gonna look at your point of view, and then you’re gonna look at my point of view, but we’re still gonna coexist mm-hmm <affirmative>. When you say, I’m right, and you are wrong, and there’s no chance of you becoming right. Therefore I’m good and you are bad. We’ve demonized everybody. And yeah, society is getting worse. But again, I think it goes to, well, wait, wait, wait, let’s have the conversation, let’s manage expectations.

(25:56):
It’s okay to have a different point of view. A point of view is healthy, saying that your point of view is the only point of view. Well, that’s a problem. Right. I agree. I mean, it’s, you know, there’s nothing wrong with, like, we reasonable debate where you respectful debate, great. But nowadays, you know, it’s, it, it turns into, you know, what it turns into. And it’s politics. I mean, I don’t know that the chasm and politics will, will be taken care of in our lifetime. I don’t, I don’t see how it could be, you know, it never has from day one. It never has. You can look at, you can, you can go through, you know, religious books, you can go through historical books. There’s always been this, this fight for power. Yeah. Yeah. But, but you know, it’s, I don’t know that it’s been this, you know, bad, this venomous.

(26:51):
Yeah. You know, you can go back, we’ve all heard the stories of Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan, you know, drinking scotch every Friday. I mean, there’s no chance of anything like that again. Yeah. It’s just, I mean, you, you would be persona non grata in your party if you, you know, even, you know, if one of the other side was on fire, if you hosed them off, you know Yeah. You, you’d be persona non, it’s just, yeah. It’s horrible. Well, and, and you know, I mean, right now you can look at somebody like Elon Musk. Elon Musk was amazing. Green deal, green deal. Electric, electric, electric. Oh my gosh. He’s amazing. And now swastika’s everywhere you’re going, what? Like Yeah. It’s, how did that happen? Yeah. It’s like, you know, but one person can like, make you completely change your entire point of view. But again, I think it goes back to managing expectations.

(27:42):
You know, you, you know what’s interesting? So, so I’ve done some continuing education through the years similar to you, except I, I have not done more degrees. What I have found is specialized executive education courses, um, that have, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re taking like the best of the best elite people from around the world, different cultures, different belief systems, different organizations, and bringing them together. So for example, in 2019, I did, um, a negotiation mastery program at Harvard Business School. Oh, nice. And it was incredible. I mean, people from all over the world, bankers and real estate agents and CEOs and lawyers, I mean, all over the place. Then I did a mastery negotiation executive education program at Harvard Law School. That, that one. And, and then as I kept getting more certifications, they kept getting smaller and smaller, more tight groups with higher levels.

(28:58):
Like, like the first one you had, you know, you have to at least be mediating or negotiating for at least five years. Then it was like, okay, at least 20 years. Okay, now you have to have at least done another course. And so what was interesting was then I did one at Harvard Law School and there was only 50 people from around the world that flew in. Wow. So it was very, very centralized. And like one of the guys in, in the, that we had, we had the, um, the union rep for Delta Airlines. Like he’s the one that is negotiating. He is the union rep. I mean, you know, and you know, we, we had some, you know, very, very high level people. Then just last year, I, I did Persuasion Without Authority Executive Education course at Columbia Business School. And in that one we had, I think it was, we had, uh, 35 participants from 12 different countries, 17 different industries.

(30:00):
Um, CEOs, COOs, CFOs. I mean, we had the Central Bank of Indonesia and the Ministry of Communication and Technology of Saudi Arabia. And we had the US State Department and the, and I mean the US Navy, I mean, we had like the who’s who all around the, like we had the CFO from CVS. And it was, it was a really challenging high level negotiation course. What’s interesting is in these courses at these high, you know, really good Ivy League schools, when I’ve gotten into these courses, what’s interesting tad is sex, religion, politics, culture, they don’t exist. Right? Like, we’re there to negotiate. And so you’ve got a Jew in an Arab and a Christian and an atheist and a white person and a black person and an Asian person. None of it matters. It’s the coolest thing when all of your prejudices from around the world and all the things that laws of communication breakdown, they’re gone because we’re all there with one central goal of I want to become the best negotiator to take back to my company, my corporation, my country.

(31:29):
And so again, going into it, all of those expectations, you know, going back to even an attorney and a client, the expectations are managed and so prejudices are left at the door. Yes. And so we’re able to get together. And what was interesting was, I was at Columbia Business School with people all around the world for, and our second day of class was the, um, it was a Tuesday night, and that was the night where Trump and Biden were debating, you know, Wednesday morning was a very interesting conversation in class from worldwide views about American politics at such a liberal university mm-hmm <affirmative>. But what was amazing was everybody was as respectful as you could ever imagine. It was amazing. Yeah. That’s, that’s beautiful. But again, you know, expectations were managed. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. You know, because we’re not there going me against you, my culture versus your culture.

(32:37):
I’m right, you are wrong. We’re all there going, alright, we need to negotiate. How would you negotiate this? How do you learn how to negotiate this? And how can you then take that back to your home, to your business, to your culture and be the best version of you? And that’s what I always try to do as a, as a mediator, is help like the mom and the dad, once I’m gone and the judge is gone and the attorneys are gone, and maybe a parenting coordinator is gone, and maybe you’re out of rehab or your, your breathalyzer is gone. How can, how can I empower you and give you tools so you can still coexist without demonizing each other? That’s my ex. It’s, no, that’s father and mother. That’s not my ex-husband, wife. That’s my father and mother. And that’s my challenge as a mediator, is to give them the tools and show them that different is okay, just let’s look at it from a different point of view and let’s gain an understanding so that we’re not demonizing and you’re not constantly fighting because that’s no way to live life.

(33:47):
Yeah. That’s amazing. I mean that’s, I I want, I want to go to one of those. I mean, that just sounds amazing. They are, they are really, really intensive and so neat. I mean, it’s just an amazing experience. Um, I actually did, so the founder on the program of negotiation at Harvard, two guys, William uie and Josh Weiss and William Urie. I’ve read all of his books. Amazing, amazing, amazing man. And then Josh Weiss and him, they actually negotiated the Abraham path, which what they did, they, they had this idea and both of ’em, international negotiators, they had the idea of, alright, what is the commonality? Not what separates us, but what do we have in common between Jews and Arabs? Palestinians and you know, like all of ’em, Iran, you know, people from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, like, what do we all have in common?

(34:50):
So looking through everything, they all had one commonality. You know what that was Abraham. Gotcha. Because whether it’s the Bible, whether it’s the Quran, whether it’s history, they all came from Abraham. Because you go all the way back to Genesis. Abraham had two sons, Ishmael, Isaac, Arab Jew. There’s your Palestinian conflict. It’s a family dispute over inheritance. That’s the entire thing. So what they did is they said, okay, how do we bridge these two people together? So they traced looking at the Bible, Koran, other doc, religious documents, historical documents. They said, okay, here’s where Abraham was born and here was his path all the way through his life, and here’s where he died. Then they got the nations together and started to negotiate and said, look, all of you have this in common. This is Abraham. Let’s create the Abraham path where it’s a safe place where everyone can come and celebrate together your common ancestor.

(36:04):
And they, they were successful and able to do that. And so many people had been going through, you know, with fly over and walk through this Abraham path. And they made it to help with culturalism, to help with tourism, to help, you know, bridge people, cultures together and also build up the area. So I found this out when I, when I went to Harvard, I found this out and I’m like, I want to go do the Abraham path. Well, they actually had a walk and experience Abraham Path training course. I signed up for it. I was like, I’m going, of course you fly into a bond, Jordan, and you walk all the way, you walk a hundred miles in a week and end up at Petra. And I’m like, that would be amazing. And there’s 10 people. I’m like a small group of people where you walk and talk and, and learn negotiation skills with Josh Weiss, who was one of the men that negotiated this.

(37:07):
And you’re, you’re, you’re staying in house stays with villagers and tents and bed ones. And I’m like, what an amazing experience. So I paid for it, got my tickets, everything. I even started training. ’cause like walking a hundred miles in the desert, like, so I started training. I trained for almost a year, and covid happened shut down the world. And I did not get to go. Oh no. And they have not reopened it yet, it’s still not been reopened, uh, mainly in Jordan. And so one of these days I would like to do it. Well, I got notifications from them going, Hey Matthew, we’re, we’ve decided we’re gonna do a virtual walk and talk virtual Abraham path. Would you want to be, would, would you be interested? No. And they’re like, really? I’m like, no, no, no. I want to go. I don’t do virtual.

(38:06):
And they’re like, okay. They ended up reaching back out to me. They said, Hey, Matthew, we’re still putting this thing together. Are you sure? Like, would you like to go? And I’m like, no, nope. I want to go. I actually want to go and do it. Third time. They said, Hey Matthew, would you like to join an advisory board and maybe help with it? Because it’s like, and I’m like, yeah, okay. That could be fun. So I ended up doing the virtual course. It was incredible taught by Josh. And it was, it was absolutely incredible. Gave me a, like a just really great appreciation. Even more so now I want to go and do it. Oh, I bet. Sounds great. But you know, these, these different type things exist out there. And again, where you would think, okay, you could get these different cultures, these different belief systems.

(39:01):
And what’s amazing is when you get into the arena of negotiation, all of that goes out the window. Right. Which is just really, really neat. Um, but one of the things I wanna ask you this, ’cause you know, just with your experience and, and dealing both with and family and criminal and stuff, one of the things that is common, you know, you said, you know, are people getting worse? Yeah. For, for a certain point. How does mental health, how do you find that, you know, dealing with high conflict, whether it’s a divorce or whether it’s, you know, even criminal, you know, there, there’s a whole talk right now about mental health. Mental health, and we’ve seen, you know, this whole shift of pe like mental health, like a lot of things that were deemed like we could only go back 10 to 20 years. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. You’d be locked up in an asylum. Yes. And now No, no, no. It’s totally normal. What, how do you see, like with the whole mental health and, and, and how do you try to maintain, how do you help clients like try to help maintain their mental health as you’re guiding them through what they’re going through? Well, two things.

(40:12):
If you have a comment or question regarding anything that we discuss, email us at info@ichatmediation.com that’s info@ichatmediation.com and stay tuned to hear your shout out and have your question answered here on the show.

(40:29):
For more information about my services or to schedule your mediation with me, either in person or using my iChatMediation Virtual Platform built by Cisco Communications. Visit me online at www.iMediateInc.com. Call me at 561-262-9121, Toll-Free at 877-822-1479 or email me at MBrickman@iChatMediation.com.

Matthew Brickman:
Occasionally Sydney and I will be releasing Q&A bonus episodes where we’ll answer your questions and give you a personal shoutout.

Sydney Mitchell:
If you have a comment or question regarding anything that we discuss, email us at info@ichatmediation.com that’s info@ichatmediation.com and stay tuned to hear your shout out and have your question answered here on the show.

Matthew Brickman:

For more information about my services or to schedule your mediation with me, either in person or using my iChatMediation Virtual Platform built by Cisco Communications. Visit me online at www.iMediateInc.com. Call me at 561-262-9121, Toll-Free at 877-822-1479 or email me at MBrickman@iChatMediation.com.