Brady in Brussels

Not much to report as of late, for most of our projects are long term and ongoing. The majority of my work these past weeks has been in preparation for our UNCITRAL conference in the first week of June. I had to edit all of the texts from our list of speakers which was a grueling task. They all utilize extremely “legal” language, which means very long sentences, excessive quotations, and a complete lack of human emotion. Some of them are not native English speakers either. Thus, it took a lot of patience, concentration, and coffee to read through the 150 or so pages of text. However, I was able to write the introduction to the conference, as well as assist my boss in writing his own text on the reform of Belgian arbitration law.

I have also been working painstakingly to market out upcoming mediation training course and our postgraduate program at in international business arbitration. However, I am very excited to report that I will in fact be able to participate in our mediation training this August. This means that I will be flying out to England to subject myself to an intensive two-week training course in cross-border civil and commercial mediation. It will be a tough task, for I will be alongside very experienced lawyers and arbitrators from around the EU. Nevertheless I am of the opinion that you the best mediators have no history in litigation because the aim is to facilitate cooperation and “expand the pie” instead of reap whatever rewards are available.

Upon completion of the course, and assuming I pass the final exam, I will be a certified mediator and can apply for accreditation a various mediation centers around the world! It’s hard to say what exactly I will do with this behind me. It will afford me various job opportunities, I’m sure, but only if I decide to dedicate the next 4-5 years of my life developing a mediation practice. A lot of this I will know once I have taken the course and experienced what it is like to be a real mediator. For now, I will simply prepare myself for two weeks of non-stop lectures on mediation theory and continual mediation mock trials.