The week's events
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BILL EDDY - Working with High-Conflict Clients and Parties
BILL EDDY - Working with High-Conflict Clients and Parties
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December 1, 2020A one-day online workshop developed especially for ADRIC and presented by the renowned Bill Eddy, LCSW, JD, co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer of the High Conflict Institute.
High conflict disputes are present in every legal, workplace, and domestic setting. They often involve one or more individuals with high-conflict behaviour, characterized by:
- All-or-nothing thinking
- Unmanaged emotions
- Extreme behaviour
- Preoccupation with blaming others
- Prolonged, unresolved conflict
- Drawing in many other people
- Draining energy, time and resources
Dealing with high-conflict disputes requires more structure and more active involvement by the professional and simple skills for the parties to fully engage them.
Bill Eddy will provide a one-day training based on his method known as New Ways™ adapted to be useful to all Dispute Resolution professionals. He will train participants in new skills for parties to use during high-conflict sessions. These include some paradigm shifts from the ordinary and are not designed to replace what already works but rather to use when other methods like emotional exchanges and insight just don’t work. This involves teaching the clients/parties simple skills for asking more questions, setting agendas, agreeing jointly on each small step of the process, making proposals, asking questions about proposals and respectfully responding to proposals.
In this approach, storytelling about past behaviour is discouraged and the focus is kept on the future. However, throughout this process of focusing on the parties’ proposals, the practitioner calmly demonstrates empathy, respect and neutrality for both parties, despite angry outbursts, surprise events, tears and rigid positions. The intended result is that the parties have less need to defend themselves, they work harder at finding solutions, and they are more committed to their own decisions.
Who will benefit from this workshop?
Mediators, arbitrators, lawyers, parenting coordinators, conflict coaches, police, human resources professionals and anyone who manages disputes.
Learning Objectives
- Identify the conflict dynamics of five types of high-conflict personalities.
- Apply brain science to managing high-conflict clients with empathy, attention and respect.
- Reduce client resistance to positive problem-solving with a 2-step method.
- Teach clients to make reasonable proposals, ask questions and respond to proposals appropriately.
- Provide a structured mediation approach designed for high-conflict personalities.
- Educate high-conflict clients about choices and consequences for making decisions.
Professional Development Accreditation:
- ADRIC Continuing Education & Engagement (CEE) points: 12
- Law Society of British Columbia: 6 hours
- Law Society of New Brunswick: 6 hours
- Law Society of Ontario: 6 hours of Professionalism Content
- Law Society of Saskatchewan: 6 hours
CPD accreditation pending from all Law Societies across Canada
This session is full. We will be offering it again (January or February) - if you would like to be added to the wait list for advance notice, please send a message to admin@adric.ca.
This workshop will not be recorded.
Schedule
Morning: Managing High Conflict Personalities
11:00–12:30: Five common personality patterns of high conflict behaviour
Other mental health issues (depression, bipolar, substance abuse)
Right-brain and Left-brain conflict styles
Reducing client resistance to problem-solving
12:30-12:45: Break
12:45-1:45: Skills for Professionals: Connect, Structure, Educate
Connecting with Empathy, Attention and Respect (EAR)
Guiding the decision-making process
Educating parties about standards and reality
Dealing with resistance to resolving disputes
Skills for Clients:
Asking more Questions
Making Agendas
Making and Responding to Proposals Finalizing Agreements
1:45-2:15: Lunch
Afternoon: Structuring the Process to Avoid Impasse
2:15-3:45: Structuring a simple process to manage high-conflict clients
Step 1: Establishing the structure
Step 2: Guiding the parties to make their agenda
Step 3: Guiding the parties to make and respond to proposals
Step 4: Finalizing and revising their agreements
3:45-5:15: Role-play mediation in Zoom break-out rooms and debrief
5:15-5:30: Break
5:30-6:00: Pre-Mediation Coaching and Coaching for BIFF (Brief, Informative, Friendly and Firm) Responses
Presenter: William A. (“Bill”) Eddy, LCSW, JD
Bill Eddy is a lawyer, therapist and mediator, and the co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer of the High Conflict Institute based in San Diego, California. Mr. Eddy provides training on the subject of high-conflict personalities to lawyers, mediators, judges, mental health professionals and others. He has presented in over 30 states, several provinces in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, England, Greece, France, Israel, Austria and Sweden.
As a lawyer, he was a Certified Family Law Specialist (CFLS) for 15 years in California, where he represented clients in family court. Prior to that, he provided psychotherapy for 12 years to children, adults, couples and families in psychiatric hospitals and outpatient clinics as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW). Throughout these careers, he has provided mediation services and was the Senior Family Mediator at the National Conflict Resolution Center in San Diego for the past 15 years.
Mr. Eddy is the author of several books, including:
- High Conflict People in Legal Disputes
- SPLITTING: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder
- BIFF: Quick Responses to High Conflict People
- So, What’s Your Proposal?
He writes a popular blog for PsychologyToday.com, with over 3 million views.
He is the developer of the New Ways for Families® method for potentially high-conflict families, which is being implemented in several family court systems in the United States and Canada. He is also the developer of the New Ways for Mediation® method, which emphasizes more structure by the mediator and more negotiation skills for the parties – with less stress for all.
He taught Negotiation and Mediation at the University of San Diego School of Law for six years. He has served as a Special Master and as a Settlement Judge in the San Diego Family Court. He is on the part-time faculty at the Staus Institute for Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine University School of Law where he teaches in-person and online courses. He is a Visiting Lecturer at Monash University Law Chambers in Melbourne, Australia and a Conjoint Associate Professor at Newcastle Law School in Newcastle, Australia. He has presented at numerous judicial conferences and state bar conferences, and at international conferences for the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts. He was a founding board member of the Academy of Professional Family Mediators.
He obtained his law degree in 1992 from the University of San Diego, a Master of Social Work degree in 1981 from San Diego State University, and a Bachelors degree in Psychology in 1970 from Case Western Reserve University.
Rates:
ADRIC Members $299 · Non-Members $425 · Applicable taxes extra
Limited spaces available: This session is full. We will be offering it again (January or February) - if you would like to be added to the wait list for advance notice, please send a message to admin@adric.ca.We will be offering it again (January or February) - if you would like to be added to the wait list for advance notice, please send a message to admin@adric.ca.
We reserve the right to cancel if registrations do not meet the minimum and would advise by November 23rd and provide a full refund.
CANCELLATION POLICY: If you must cancel, notice must be received in writing. All refund requests received up to one week prior to the date of the webinar will receive a refund less a 5% administrative fee. Notice must be received NO LATER THAN 11:59pm ET THREE DAYS PRIOR to the date of the webinar to receive a refund less a 25% administrative fee unless we are able to find a replacement for your spot, in which case you will receive a refund less 10% admin fee. No refunds available after that point.We reserve the right to cancel if registrations do not meet the minimum and would advise by November 23rd and provide a full refund.