ABOUT ME:My background integrates law, business, negotiation, conflict resolution, organizational development, adult learning, and leadership. I am dedicated to helping others build consensus, strengthen relationships, and achieve the highest potential for their ideas and themselves.
I began my career as a corporate deal lawyer, working for 8+ years at top global law firms, most recently Jones Day. I designed, negotiated and closed hundreds of sought-after deals of every type, shape and form. My clients were investors and high-growth organizations ranging from 3 to 10,000+ employees, all across the world. I left big firm practice to found my own firm, iDeal Counsel APLC, in 2004. There, I developed a more entrepreneurial approach to representing clients, serving as outside "general counsel" for Silicon Valley-based start-ups and emerging businesses, primarily in the software, mobile, clean energy, and wine industry sectors. My practice integrated hands-on legal risk management with strategic advisory services. I embedded within each client's executive management team to help envision and implement high growth business models in rapidly changing markets. I also worked closely with founders to position their companies for early stage venture capital, helping to raise over $75 million. Around that time I began to deeply investigate the reasons why deals fail. I wanted to understand the relationship between successful outcomes and the process choices involved in designing, negotiating and implementing deals. And what I learned totally surprised me. Studies have shown that between 53% and 83% of deals are unsuccessful at creating any business benefit as regards shareholder value. So, in spite of the vast sums paid to lawyers, investment bankers, accounting firms, and strategic consultants, the majority of deals do not meet expectations, let alone exceed them. Imagine that. My clients, too, echoed frustration. Even years after a deal closed, they would talk about how much value was "left on the table" by not having the tools to squeeze out more joint gains. Let's just say "if only" are not words that grow a business. I began to wonder, might there be a better way to do deals? Through my practice I had observed that time, attention, money, and other resources were usually committed only to advocating for stakeholder positions. There was little regard for creating the conditions necessary for the highest and best "whole" to emerge, let alone for understanding that the "parts" alone do not explain the behavior of the "whole". So, I asked myself these questions: Who gives voice to the best interests of the deal? And might a mediator help? Could a mediator with expertise in business strategy and operations help to streamline negotiations, frame issues, identify new opportunities, raise crucial challenges, and improve bargaining dynamics? And even more importantly, could a mediator unlock hidden value and create a smarter deal for everyone involved? That's when I saw a better way. After training extensively in various approaches to mediation, I began to adapt what I learned to serve the special needs of stakeholders involved in deals and other complex negotiations where relationships matter. Existing mediation models had limited use because they oriented around litigating past events or intimate family matters. We needed something new. Over time I built and tested fresh models for mediating negotiations, gradually applying them across a variety of contexts - from commercial transactions among businesses to intraorganizational conflicts among employees to change initiatives among multiple stakeholders that bridge sectors, cultures and perspectives. In 2010, I presented them at the first ever American Bar Association workshops on the subject. When parties to a deal experience conflict, the negotiation posture is typically "win/lose": one party wins at the expense of the other, hence conflict. The last twenty or so years has encouraged "win/win" approaches to negotiation where the parties' positions, needs and interests can be reconciled and integrated to maximize individual gains. Ironically, however, this approach is the big reason why deals fail. What "win/win" misses entirely are the synergies generated by deal itself. By maximizing only the known interests and needs of parties, we fail to tap into all the latent value that will, in fact, be generated, or not, through relationships and synergies. In business, 1+1 does not always equal 2. Sometimes, it equals 7. Or 13. We need to move beyond "win/win" to create, reveal, leverage, and share in those types of gains. I have found that having a neutral third party like a mediator is a strikingly effective, cost-efficient way of strengthening the chances for deal success. While advancing in my career as both advocate and neutral, I began to teach negotiations and deal-making as adjunct professor at two top-tier American law schools, University of California Berkeley School of Law and University of California Hastings College of the Law. There, I observed the challenges my students had in bringing into practice the techniques and strategies we explored. Although they knew what they "should" do - at least according to the books - they often found themselves challenged to enact those behaviors under pressure. Whether fearful, highly reactive, or trapped by old patterns and conditioning, they struggled to stay focused on their strategy and, in turn, achieve their goals. Sound familiar? It sure struck a nerve with me. For many of my students, our class was the first time they purposefully explored their perceptions and experiences around conflict. And quickly, I found out just how much they benefited from openly and critically questioning their assumptions. Not to mention how much unfolded for me by looking at my own assumptions, right along with them. While we always started off by learning the latest negotiation theories, tactics, and strategies, gradually we would move into the deeper, more human aspects of conflict, too, exploring themes like identity and behavior; power and vulnerability; certainty and ambiguity; cultural archetypes and personal narratives. Through experiential and self-reflective exercises, they started to develop competencies across many distinct ways of knowing. This was by design. And for law students, who tend to rely almost exclusively on their analytical skills, it was also emancipating. Soon, learning wasn't just about swallowing and digesting rules, like it is in most of law school; instead, it was about them, as people, embodying their learning in an integrated and authentic manner, adaptable to the many contexts in which they will find themselves, whether as negotiators, advocates, business professionals, non-profit leaders, policy makers, or agents of change. Isn't this what it's all about? Bringing our whole selves to the solutions? Regardless of how hard we may try, we can't ever control the context to the point of certainty. Some unforeseen dynamic or challenge will always reveal itself, and often in ways that disorients us. So, we need to be flexible and adaptable as negotiators - skillful in our ability to improvise and purposeful in our capacity to lead. Very practically speaking, I have found that a more integrative approach leads to a dramatic improvement in actually obtaining the outcomes we desire, We are more aware of complex dynamics, more present to our own strategic goals and interests, even in high-intensity conflicts, and more capable of responding to uncertainty with greater resolve and resilience. And so, The iDeal Approach was born. Over the last several years, I have been applying and refining these tools in diverse contexts to help individuals, teams, organizations, and communities resolve and transform difficult conflict situations. Drawing upon aspects of stage developmental theory, interpersonal neurobiology, complexity science, arts-based research, and phenomenology, The iDeal Approach is evolving in imaginative new ways. Perhaps the most interesting part of this work is how it unleashes creativity. Conflict and creativity are two sides of the same coin; shadow and light. If you don't allow conflict, or work with it skillfully, you risk hampering or even destroying the creative impulse altogether. This leads to terrible results in high performing teams, businesses and organizations that seek "flow" and innovation in leadership and design. Today, I am also reconnecting to my "roots" as a transactional lawyer. Law needs to undergo a fundamental transformation in order to adapt to the social, political, economic, and ecological realities of our times, a landscape in many ways unrecognizable from the traditional legal theory and practice that I learned in law school. This inspires me to help in developing new legal, finance, and governance structures that will serve better than the ones we have now. While grateful to the many institutions who have supported and hosted my work, The iDeal World and iDeal Counsel APLC are my professional homes, the places where I explore the edges through and with my colleagues and clients. So, what is The iDeal World? To me, it's where new breaks through. It's about new ways of relating and new ways of collaborating. It's about creating the conditions for whole systems to shift. It's about making the invisible visible. It's about shaping the emerging future. It's about our ideals informing our actions. And it's about doing it all with zest: the thrill of flow, the joy of community, the gift of purpose. |
EXPERTISE:
EDUCATION:Certificate in Advanced Graduate Studies, The European Graduate School (Qualifying Phase for Doctoral Program in Expressive Arts in Conflict Transformation and Peace Building) (part-time, expected 2017)
Diploma in International Commercial Arbitration, St. Anne's College, University of Oxford, The Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, London, U.K. (2003) J.D. with honors, University of Florida College of Law (1996) B.A. in Political Science with Pi Sigma Alpha honors, Colgate University (1992) FACULTY:Lecturer in Law, Stanford Law School (2016 to present)
Lecturer in Negotiations, University of California Berkeley School of Law (2010 to present, Fall only) Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law, Center of Negotiation & Dispute Resolution, University of California Hastings College of the Law (2008 to present) CREDENTIALS:Appointed to Mediation and Dialogue Facilitation Expert Roster for the OSCE, Vienna, AU
(Formerly) Mediator to the OECD, Paris, FR (Formerly) Fellow, Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, London, UK Member, International Ombudsman Association Member, Association of Mediation Assessors, Trainers and Instructors (AMATI), London, UK Licensed to the Bar:
SKILLS TRAINING:
LANGUAGES:Conversant in French and Greek; basic understanding of Spanish & German
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