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The Australian Dispute Resolution Research Network
The ADR Research Network is a group of Australian dispute resolution academics. Blogging & tweeting high quality, critical dispute resolution scholarship.
Author Archives: Dr Olivia Rundle
About Dr Olivia Rundle
Dr Rundle is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Tasmania. She has worked as a nationally accredited mediator and a Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner. Dr Rundle is especially interested in the role of lawyers in dispute resolution processes and the policy environment that positively encourages lawyers to engage with dispute resolution. She teaches and researches in broad areas of Dispute Resolution, Civil Procedure and Family Law.
Assessment of suitability for family dispute resolution
Posted on 14/01/2020 by Dr Olivia Rundle
This post is written by Mark Dickinson, PhD candidate at the University of Tasmania, and is based upon the paper that he presented at the ADRRN Roundtable in December 2019.
This research project explores the assessment of suitability for Family Dispute Resolution (FDR) – a decision making process which is a primary responsibility of a Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner (FDRP) (See generally Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) and Family Law (Family Dispute Resolution Practitioners) Regulations 2008 (Cth)). Before a joint FDR (mediation) session can be offered an assessment as to its suitability for the parties must first be conducted (Reg 25(1)). This discretionary assessment of suitability for FDR relies on the professional judgment of the individual FDRP. Using a mixed methods approach this research examines this assessment of suitability as undertaken by FDRPs working in a community-based, not for profit organisation in Tasmania.
Mohamed Hassan, Pixabay https://images.app.goo.gl/VghtFUuavzVBJ5418
From July 2007 the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) has required separated parents and others to make a genuine effort to resolve their parenting dispute at FDR prior to filing in the family courts (s60I – note exceptions apply). FDR is a non-adversarial, alternative dispute resolution process akin to facilitative mediation. Coinciding with this mandating of FDR, 65 community-based, government funded, Family Relationship Centres (FRCs) were established around the country to provide free or nominal cost FDR services. The majority of FDR takes place in FRCs (see Moloney et al, p238).
It has been observed that clients engaging at FRCs are increasingly presenting with complex needs (see also Smyth et al, 10-11). The mandating of FDR and the establishment of FRCs has led FDRPs to be considered "gatekeepers" to the family court system. As a result, the nature and complexity of cases dealt with in an FRC can vary considerably.
The test to be applied in assessing suitability for FDR involves a consideration of the "capacity of each party to negotiation freely" having regard to a range of factors including: any history of family violence; the safety of the parties; equality of bargaining power; risk of child abuse; and the emotional, psychological and physical health of the parties (reg 25(2)). Communications made to an FDRP during FDR are generally confidential (s 10H); and subject to a specific court order, practitioners are not required to provide reasons for the determination of suitability for FDR. This research aims to shed light on this important decision of the FDRP.
One aspect of an FDRP's competence in practice is the ability to effectively mediate a range of parenting disputes with varying complexity. It is argued that the greater the FDRP's ability to effectively mediate complex (as well as less complex) matters, the higher will be the percentage of their caseload that they will assess as suitable for FDR and will proceed to a joint mediation session. FRC clients that are assessed as unsuitable for FDR are provided with a "section 60I certificate" to that effect and need to consider other options to resolve their dispute. Receipt of a s 60I certificate enables a party to file a parenting application in the family courts, though the cost of engaging a private legal practitioner in such proceedings is not a viable option for many. Research commissioned by Interrelate found that 41% of its surveyed FRC clients who received a not suitable certificate would have preferred to continue with FDR to resolve their dispute.
From a governmental perspective FDR is a cost-effective method of resolving family law disputes. An analysis by the Australian Government found that FDR conducted through FRCs and Legal Aid Commissions had a net cost per service of less than one fifth of the cost of matters finalised in the Family Court of Australia. Recent budgetary cuts to Legal Aid Commissions and Community Legal Centres are likely to reduce the number of clients having access to free or subsidised family law legal services. The recently published Australian Law Reform Commission Inquiry into the Family Law System supports the continued use of FDR. Within this context the Australian Government has shown an ongoing interest in exploring alternative outcome measures and funding models for FRCs.
A deeper understanding of the assessment of suitability for FDR using both quantitative and qualitative methods may support the adoption of the frequency of assessments of suitability for FDR as a further metric for measuring FDRP effectiveness in practice. Further research (beyond the scope of this project) may use the findings of this research to develop models for practice aimed at increasing the frequency FDR is assessed as suitable, and therefore of clients being offered a joint FDR (mediation) service.
Relationships Australia Tasmania
Relationships Australia Tasmania (RA Tas) operates all FRCs established in Tasmania, with centres in Hobart, Launceston and Devonport. RA Tas has provided in principle agreement to provide data for this research project. I was formerly employed by Relationships Australia Tasmania ("RA Tas") as an FDRP and senior practitioner in FDR. In 2014 I conducted a pilot study at the Launceston FRC quantifying the number of section 60I certificates issued by its FDRPs. The pilot study suggested a significant variation between FDRPs of the frequency in which they assessed cases as unsuitable.
Having regard to the scope of the data sought, this research aims to answer the following research questions:
Is there a significant variation between FDRPs of the frequency in which cases are assessed as unsuitable?
What do FDRPs report they consider when assessing suitability for FDR?
Assuming a significant variation is found to the first question, what factors reported by FDRPs appear most relevant in explaining that variation?
Methodology Summary
The proposed research involves at least two phases. The first phase of this research will cover a five year period and quantify: all certificate types issued by RA Tas FDRPs; the number of cases allocated to each FDRP; and the number of cases that proceeded to a joint FDR session. This data should show what variation exists between FDRPs of the frequency in which they assess cases as unsuitable (and suitable) – expressed as a percentage of total cases.
The second phase of the research will involve in depth interviews with RA Tas FDRPs, supervisors and managers to explore the decision making process of assessing suitability for FDR and endeavour to explain the anticipated variation in the frequency of cases assessed as unsuitable by those FDRPs.
It is hypothesized that the assessment of suitability may be as much an assessment for the FDRP as it is of the clients. This assumes an FDRP conducts the assessment and that FDRP will conduct the FDR session if the case is assessed as suitable for FDR.
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WHAT MAKES A GOOD ARBITRATION LAW? THE AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCE
This post by Dr Benjamin Hayward is based upon the work in progress that he presented at the ADRRN Roundtable on 9-10 December 2019.
The ingredients for avocado toast. Photo: Nicole De Khors, Creative Commons
Arbitration is an alternative dispute resolution mechanism that can be used to resolve international and domestic commercial disputes. It is a private process, grounded in the parties' consent and separate to litigation, but it remains related: arbitration is a formal dispute resolution process; it is supported by national laws regulating its conduct; and those laws also set out the ways in which courts may intervene in the arbitral process for the purpose of supporting it. In Australia, the International Arbitration Act 1974 (Cth) regulates international commercial arbitration. Uniform State and Territory Acts, including the Commercial Arbitration Act 2011 (Vic), govern arbitrations relating to domestic commercial disputes.
Many Asia-Pacific arbitral centres, including the Singapore International Arbitration Centre, have seen their caseloads increase over recent years. Though there are no reliable local statistics, and despite a series of reforms to its international and domestic commercial arbitration laws over the past decade, Australia is still perceived as lagging behind.
Significant reforms to Australia's international commercial arbitration laws were enacted in 2010, seeking to establish this country as a regional arbitration hub, though Australia is yet to realise this dream. Given all of this, and empirical evidence confirming that countries' formal legal infrastructures are the most important factor motivating parties' choices of arbitral seat (ie. legal location of an arbitration), two important practical and policy questions arise:
1. What ingredients make up a good arbitration law?; and
2. How do we go about measuring the success of law reform?
Jurisdictions' arbitration laws are traditionally critiqued on the basis of their arbitration friendliness and/or their pro-arbitration natures. References to these concepts abound in online commentary. Yet these concepts are sometimes misapplied, and sometimes misused. Even aside from their nebulous natures, they may represent a binary and overly simplistic way of viewing what are actually difficult issues. Australia's quest to become a recognised and respected arbitral centre will be frustrated if there is no way to adequately justify (or predict) the quality of future (or proposed) law reforms. An evaluative framework comprised of something more than just generalisations is required.
It is here that the views of Australia's arbitration community have an important role to play. International and domestic commercial arbitration laws exist to serve merchants. It therefore stands to reason that the arbitration and merchant communities' concerns should constitute the criteria against which developments in Australia's arbitration laws are measured.
A 2009 conference organised by the Australian Centre for International Commercial Arbitration invited its participants to query the extent to which Australia's international and domestic commercial arbitration laws lived up to efficiency, effectiveness, and economic viability ideals. These ideals reflect matters of continuing concern to the arbitration profession. Academics, practitioners, and their clients continue to critique costs and delay in arbitral proceedings. Effectiveness – which may be defined as the degree to which arbitration secures its intended results – also encompasses ongoing concerns around the degree to which Australia's arbitration laws are consistent with consistent with the international templates upon which they are based, and market expectations.
Applying these efficiency, effectiveness, and economic viability criteria to developments in Australia's arbitration laws over the 2009 to 2019 period provides some interesting insights. To take just one example, the International Arbitration Act 1974 (Cth) was amended in 2010 to include confidentiality provisions, though these applied on an opt-in (rather than a default) basis. Parties had to affirmatively choose these provisions in order for them to apply; a position not all that different in substance to the then-existing common law rule that arbitration is private but not confidential, unless parties specifically adopt their own confidentiality clause. Given confidentiality's empirically-confirmed importance in international arbitration, these reforms were arguably contrary to market expectations on account of their opt-in nature: and, thus, ineffective. Further amendments in 2015 finally gave these confidentiality rules default operation, aligning their application with market expectations (albeit after a five year delay).
The efficiency, effectiveness, and economic viability criteria provide Commonwealth, State, and Territory legislators with a recipe for future reforms to Australia's international and domestic commercial arbitration laws. The adoption of these criteria as policy standards (and legislative drafting tools) stands to assist Australia in developing high quality arbitration laws, and high quality law reform packages. This, in turn, has the potential to help Australia improve its attractiveness as a place to conduct arbitrations for the resolution of both international and domestic commercial disputes.
This is not merely a matter of semantics. Consistently applying the efficiency, effectiveness, and economic viability criteria to Australian arbitration law reform stands to generate different outcomes to those seen over the 2009 to 2019 period. Returning once again to the confidentiality example, reconsideration of the original 2010 reforms in light of market expectations (a matter of effectiveness) would have led to the International Arbitration Act 1974 (Cth)'s confidentiality provisions having default application from the outset.Commercial parties, when negotiating dispute resolution clauses in their contracts, will ultimately vote with their feet. If Australia's arbitration laws don't reach the mark, they will simply choose to arbitrate elsewhere. This is all the more reason to take on board the arbitration and merchant communities' concerns when seeking to improve Australia's arbitration laws for the ultimate benefit of commercial parties.
Dr Benjamin Hayward is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Business Law and Taxation, at the Monash Business School. His research interests span international commercial arbitration, the international sale of goods, private international law, and Australian contract, commercial, sales, and consumer law. Dr Hayward is the author of Conflict of Laws and Arbitral Discretion – The Closest Connection Test (Oxford University Press, 2017), his publications are available on SSRN, he tweets at @LawGuyPI, and he is the co-director of his department's International Trade and International Commercial Law research group.
Posted in Dispute resolution	| 2 Replies
ADRRN 2019 Wrap Up
Happy end of 2019 to all our followers!
We clocked over 20,000 views by over 13,000 visitors to our adrresearch.net WordPress site, another record of annual growth since we started it in 2013.
This is our 65th post for the year, showing that we have kept to our commitment to regular posting. A big thank you to all our monthly blog editors who take responsibility for organising at least one post per week.
2019 readers accessed adrresearch.net from Australia, the UK, USA, Canada, India, New Zealand, Ireland, Singapore, South Africa, Hong Kong, Germany, Kenya, Spain and many more.
@ADRResearch on Twitter has 1,590 followers.
The most frequent place for people to visit the ADRRN was on our home page, but the other popular posts, with over 300 reads each during 2019, were:
There is a time and place for mediation but a bullying allegation in the workplace is not one by Carmelene Greco, a student from the Faculty of Law at Monash University.
Can Judges Mediate? CASE NOTE: Wardman v Macquarie Bank by Olivia Rundle, Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Tasmania.
The Empty Idea of Mediator Impartiality by Jonathan Crowe and Rachael Field, Professors at Bond University.
Power of Parties in Mediation: What is the Mediator's Role? by Robert Angyal SC, barrister, mediator and arbitrator.
The Dispute Tree or the Dispute Pyramid by Kate Curnow, now in house counsel in private practice.
The Central Role of Party Self-Determination in Mediation Ethics by Rachael Field and Jonathan Crowe, Professors at Bond University.
Unpacking the "adversarial advocate" by Olivia Rundle, Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Tasmania.
Some of the above posts were made some years ago. Thank you for engaging with our short ideas on here!
Contributions to the ADRRN WordPress blog can be made by anyone in the dispute resolution research community (ie you!). Please read Blogging Basics for Beginners and send your draft post to the Editor in Chief, who will be able to advise the monthly blog editor and coordinate timing. Editor in Chief is Olivia Rundle until February 2020 when Nussen Ainsworth takes the reigns.
We'll be back in January with more posts based upon papers workshopped at our 8th Roundtable in early December.
image by Claire Holland – ADRRN Roundtable 2019
Image by Claire Holland of Jackie Weinberg. ADRRN Roundtable 2019
Claire Holland and Tina Hoyer – ADRRN Roundtable 2019
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Roundtable Wrap Up and Handover of Leadership Roles
Well, what a fabulous 48 hours were had at Latrobe University in Melbourne, Victoria on Monday 9th December and Tuesday 10th December 2019! The ADRRN Roundtable is a deliberately rigorous and kind gathering of dispute resolution related researchers who are brave enough to share their work in progress for face to face review by peers. Especially delightful is the growth in participation by early career researchers, including PhD candidates. It seems that word has got out that there is something pretty special on offer.
Associate Professor Lola Akin Ojelabi of Latrobe University and Jackie Weinberg of Monash University were our most excellent hosts. Lola is a founding member of the network. Jackie has completion of her PhD in sight. Jackie came along to the ADRRN Roundtable earlier in her PhD journey and mentioned at the Roundtable opening the value she now places on that experience.
Papers presented and discussed
Many of the people who presented work at the Roundtable have prepared posts that will be rolled out here over December and January. Two posts have already been made – if you missed them see Rosemary Howell and Emma Lee's The story of a collaborative journey – through the lens of reimagining the conflict narrative using lessons from Indigenous Australians and Emilia Belluci's The future of ODR: what are the benefits and drawbacks of F2F negotiation, and its applicability to future ODR design?
Handover of Leadership Roles
Reflective of the evolution of the network, we are pleased to announce a change of roles from 2020.
Dr John Woodward will be the new President of the ADRRN.
Nussen Ainsworth will be the new Editor in Chief of our Blog from February 2020.
These changes have been reflected on our About page.
For a refresher, see also and explainer of our approach to membership.
When is the next Roundtable?
The 9th Roundtable of the ADRRN will be held in February 2021 in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. The exact date will be announced in early 2020 when the Call for Papers will be posted on adrresearch.net.
For an indication of what kind of content is considered relevant for ADRRN Roundtables, see the 2019 Call for Papers and our list of papers workshopped at the 8th Roundtable. We are a broad interest group, drawing together work from a range of disciplines and processes, provided they fall into the spectrum of processes that resolve disputes (other than the formal trial process) or research about conflict and its management.
The future of ODR: what are the benefits and drawbacks of F2F negotiation, and its applicability to future ODR design?
This post is by Dr. Emilia Bellucci, Deakin Business School, whose paper was workshopped at the ADRRN Roundtable at Latrobe University on 9-10 December 2019. This is the first of a series of posts related to the Roundtable.
ODR systems provide support to negotiations by facilitating communication online and in some circumstances even provide solutions to the dispute. An ODR is considered successful if the outcome represents a similar or better outcome to an ADR process, inferring ODR processes should mimic F2F negotiations. In a recently published paper (Bellucci et al 2019), my colleagues and I report on an ODR study whereby we replicated Boland and Ross (2010)'s finding that the propensity to resolve a dispute is directly related to the EI (Emotional Intelligence) of disputants. Boland and Ross' (2010) study involved F2F (Face to Face) negotiation, whereas our negotiations were conducted online. Underlying this paper was the assumption that F2F is the preferred format of negotiation, and therefore our findings supported the idea that a successful ODR was one which replicated F2F mechanisms.
In this research I want to challenge this assumption. Why is F2F negotiation the preferred option for negotiation? Do F2F negotiations achieve better outcomes?
In attempting to answers these questions, we need to understand the seminal differences between communicating electronically and in person. These include the use of verbal and non-verbal cues to express ideas, solutions and feedback. Whilst verbal communication is often supplemented by non-verbal cues, such as body language and facial expressions, I am most interested in the effect of non-verbal communication (which is typically missing in an ODR) on a negotiation.
Facial expressions (smiles, frowns), crossed arms, learning forward or back, micro expressions are all examples of non-verbal communication. These expressions, together with the spoken word may reveal a disputant's joy, anger, sadness, happiness with the negotiation. Whilst emotions revealed during the negotiation may be used to move a negotiation forward, resolve impasses and settle on amicable solution, they can also be used to deceive and unfairly influence the negotiation.
Emotions expressed during negotiation vary depending on the context of the dispute, and include nasty emotions (anger, jealousy), existential emotions (anxiety), emotions resulting from positive and negative life events (disappointment, happiness), and sympathetic emotions (gratitude). Research suggests positive emotions tend to contribute positively to the negotiation, while negative emotions contribute negatively to a negotiation.
In the F2F medium, disputants reveal emotional leakage through verbal and non-verbal cues. Whilst emotions should not be ignored in negotiation, we should not allow emotions to distance the negotiation away from the issues in dispute. Emotions should be managed so outcomes from a negotiation are reflective of the human experience.
F2F negotiation is preferred for two main reasons:
F2F is the richest form of communication. It allows for opportunities to clarify interests and positons of the parties and allows for quick feedback and opportunities to reassess options to resolve the dispute successfully. Without F2F, many fear they will accept a solution which may not reflect the best solution.
Lawyers view ODR with a healthy degree of scepticism, due predominantly to a computer's lack of creative decision making and inability to understand complex issues. There is a place for ODR as a support to communication (ie video conferencing, email, document management etc) and to resolve small disputes such as in e-commerce (ebay, paypal) where outcomes are set.
So how can apply the positive aspects of F2F negotiation to an ODR? Can we have the best of both worlds?
Here are some ideas for future research:
ODR can filter language initially by expressing negative emotion to more appropriate language conducive to creating a positive environment. Either the software or negotiators may be asked to soften their language for these purposes. Software can also manage a disputant's emotional responses by using feedback screens to illicit emotional responses, after which, the system can deliver responses to help disputants manage their emotion. These designs are in research currently. What may be some of the obstacles to mainstream use?
Research (one study only) suggests there is no difference between F2F and computer negotiations, specifically relating to how emotion is expressed. People were found to supplement text in ODR with emoticons, capital letters or simply wrote more thoughtfully and clearly to supplement their communication. Future work may involve the design of an empirical study to compare the effectiveness and communication models of ODR and F2F.
It is perceived that ODR processes do not support the law authentically by providing another avenue for legitimate negotiation. How can we change this perception?
Dr. Emilia Bellucci is a Senior lecturer in the Department of Information Systems and Business Analytics at Deakin University, Melbourne Australia. Her major research area is in Online Dispute Resolution Systems with a particular focus on electronic support of family law negotiation and mediations. Emilia completed her PhD in 2004, under the supervision of Professor John Zeleznikow, and resulted in the "Family Winner" computer program which was designed to settle family law disputes. Family Winner was the focus of much media in 2005 with a number of newspaper articles, radio station interviews and television appearances including a win on the science and technology television program, ABC's "New Inventors".
Since then, Dr. Bellucci has conducted research in e-health, small to medium enterprises and has recently returned to Online Dispute Resolution with a renewed passion to make justice (through negotiated outcomes) and ODR accessible to all. Dr. Bellucci has published 16 refereed international journal articles, 3 book chapters and 29 refereed conference papers. She has attended and presented her research at numerous international conferences and workshops.
ADRRN Roundtable 2019 – you can join in via Twitter
The Australasian Dispute Resolution Research Network 8th Annual Roundtable starts on Monday 9th December. This year's organisers are Lola Akin Ojelabi and Jacqueline Weinberg. We will be gathering at the La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia.
The two day Roundtable is an opportunity to share work in progress and to benefit from generous scholarly attention to presenter's work.
We know that the work is of interest to many who will not be with us in person. We will therefore be live tweeting next week and sharing posts on adrresearch.net about each of the papers throughout the remainder of December and January. The first was a pre-Roundtable post about Emma Lee and Rosemary Howell's shared research journey.
On Twitter, you can find us @ADRResearch and this year's Roundtable will use #ADRRN19. The host institution is @latrobelaw
To whet your appetites, here are the papers being presented on Monday 9th December and Tuesday 10th December 2019. Twitter handles of authors are included so you can connect.
Tania Sourdin @TaniaSourdin "Using Technology to support ADR research – the possible and the not so possible (yet)"
John Zeleznikow "The Appropriate Design of Online Dispute Resolution Systems"
Mary Riley "Potential Cost of Failing to Heal Civilian-Police Relations"
Emilia Belucci "Face-to-face dispute resolution and Online Dispute Resolution – Which is preferred?"
Joanna Burnett "Social Work in an Adapted Family Law Mediation Program: Literature Review"
Tania Sourdin @TaniaSourdin and Margaret Castles "Finding a place for ADR in Pre-action process: South Australian case-study"
Becky Batagol @BeckyBatagol "How Can Banks Better Deal with Family Violence Disputes"
Laurence Boulle @LaurenceBoulle and Rachael Field @rachaelfield68 "Elections, Politics and Dispute Resolution"
Claire Holland @Holland_CL and Tina Hoyer "A case for coaching: How to Measure the Effectiveness of the ATO Coaching Model"
Alysoun Boyle @alysounb1420 "Transitional Research Alliance: Innovative Approaches to Mediation Research"
Rosemary Howell @RosemaryJHowell and Emma Lee "Reimagining the narrative and its special place in Conflict Resolution using lessons from Indigenous Australians"
John Woodward @John_woodward1 "Exploring the relationship between Confidentiality and Disputant Participation in Court-Connected Mediation"
Ruth McColl "A discussion on conciliation"
Nussen Ainsworth @nussenainsworth and Svetlana German "NMAS and Distinction between process and substance in Court-Connected Mediations"
Benjamin Hayward @LawGuyPI "Have post-2009 developments in Australia's arbitration laws promoted efficient, effective and economical arbitration?"
Claire Holland @Holland_CL "Measuring Hope: Levels of Hope in Australian Law Students' Experience"
Mark Dickinson "The Assessment of Suitability for Family Dispute Resolution"
Jacqueline Weinberg "Enhancing ADR Teaching and Social Justice Learning in Clinical Legal Education"
Dorcas Quek Anderson @DorcasQAnderson "A Matter of Interpretation? Understanding and Applying Mediation Standards"
Pauline Roach @Pauline80074936 "Workplace Mediation Model at the Roads and Maritime Services of NSW – 2003-2013"
Lola Akin Ojelabi @OOAkinOjelabi "SDG 16 (Access to Justice) and the Singapore Convention"
Olivia Rundle @OCRundle, Lisa Toohey @TooheyL and Samantha Hardy @DrSamHardy "Causes of Conflict in HDR Supervision Relationships"
For more information about the Roundtable see the Call for Papers. Please follow us on WordPress or Twitter and look out for the next Call for Papers if you'd like to join the 2020 Roundtable.
Webinar Alert: Co-Creating Mediation Models: Adapting mediation models when working across cultures.
Australasian Dispute Resolution Research Network member Claire Holland will deliver a webinar for Mediators Beyond Borders International (MBBI) in December. Please register by the link below if you are interested to join.
Join our conversation on Co-creating Mediation Models: Adapting Mediation Practices When Working Across Cultures by Claire Holland on Thursday, December 5, 2019, at 5:00 PM ET. In this webinar, Claire will discuss mindful approaches to meeting the needs of the participants of the mediation process.
Click here to learn more and to register.
Claire Holland is the Director of the James Cook University Conflict Management and Resolution Program, a Nationally Accredited Mediator under the Australian Standards, a mediator for the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT), and a certified conflict coach with Conflict Coaching International.
Mediators Beyond Borders International works to bring mediation and peace skills to communities around the globe so that they can, in turn, build a more peace "able" world. To this end, MBBI organizes initiatives to address three essential objectives: Capacity building, promoting mediation through advocacy, and delivering consultancy services.
Settlement and sex: queering dispute resolution
Is settlement like sex? Should it be?
How can queer theory be applied to the field of dispute resolution?
What if disputing parties were viewed as bearers of desires rather than bearers of interests (or rights)?
Do positivity, desire, consent and feeling good distinguish alternative dispute resolution from formal legal dispute resolution processes?
Would the dispute resolution field benefit from a reminder of the playful rebellious roots upon which it was founded?
Does a focus on relational interaction encourage us to abandon our attachment to the constraints of identity and self-interest?
These are just some of the contemplations invited by Daniel Del Gobbo's article "Queer Dispute Resolution" (2019) 20 Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution 283. Daniel is from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, and part of the Australasian Dispute Resolution Research Network, reflecting the international reach of our community.
The goal of the article is to ask difficult questions and expand the theoretical terrain of the dispute resolution field. This post provides an imperfect snapshot of some interesting points – I recommend that you read the full article to fully appreciate its arguments.
Koshy Koshy Strange things are happening these days Creative Commons Licence
Daniel reminds the reader of the deliberate re-framing of disputes by the dispute resolution field from the "overly formal" rights based claims to the "more natural" interest based conversation. He suggests that a slight adjustment from a focus upon interests, to desires, opens up further potential. Queer theory explores how sexuality is articulated across identity and desire, celebrating its messy, restless, non-uniform and changeable nature. Through the embracing and celebration of these characteristics of desire, a critical gaze can be better placed upon the normative expectations that can inhibit creativity.
The problem with an over-reliance upon "a crude version of liberal economic theory" in the dispute resolution field is that the maximisation of (economic) self-interest assumes that a person's interests are "rational, predictable, and unchanging through the settlement process." By contrast, desire is understood by queer theorists to be "irrational, unpredictable, and at least potentially changing." Interests are, in reality, often irrational, unpredictable and changing throughout the settlement process.
The practice of settlement, not unlike the practice of sexuality, is constituted by the mutual interplay of the parties' wants and desires in reaching a negotiated agreement over new and potentially pleasurable terms that may or may not come to pass. … The subject's interests may be prone to change in the negotiation on account of the other parties' stimulating behaviour, intervening events in the parties' lives, and the parties' affective responses to the bargaining environment, which may or may not have a rational basis. All that matters is that the settlement process feels good – socially, culturally, economically, legally – or that it feels better in the moment, at least, than an adjudicative process which would distribute pleasure and danger in a less satisfying way. [pp 303-304]
The mutuality of bargaining, like sex, requires that there be an ethical approach – a commitment to a process and outcomes that "feel good" for all participants. Consensual processes require recognition and support by each participant of the autonomy and self-determination of the other. This is the challenge of mutuality – it requires a commitment to act morally towards the other. Consent provides a framework to manage that problem. The basic principles of the legal doctrine of consent can be described generally as follows:
…the parties must voluntarily agree on any process that is chosen and any conclusion that is reached for the arrangement to be legal. The parties should be provided with any relevant information necessary to make informed decisions for themselves. And crucially, there must be an approximate balance of power between the parties at all times because otherwise it may be impossible to maintain the integrity of the process, prevent bad faith and unconscionable agreements, and keep the parties safe. [p 317]
However, the legal notion of consent can be critiqued (and is by critical, feminist and queer scholars) for its failure to account for societal systems of power including male dominance, capitalism, and homonormativity. Power itself is changeable, and cannot be inferred from status or identity alone – it is not possible to account for dependence and vulnerability in an orderly, fixed sense. Power can be sourced from rules, norms, and the parties' characteristics and relationship with one another. (See discussion in our recent post about The Power of Parties in Mediation: What is the Mediator's Role?).
Through a relational lens, the limits of "free agency" can be accounted for, without deciding for participants what a "good" outcome looks like. Rather than pretending that the complex inequalities and dynamics of power can be "balanced" between negotiating parties, "relational autonomy" recognises the influence that people have upon one another within their relationship, the growth of self within relationships, and the way care and dependence are mutually constructed. The practical challenges abound, and (unanswerable) questions are raised, including:
What relations, and legal regulation of those relations, will enable everyone to participate most freely and equally in the creative refashioning of consensual life?
What kinds of changes are required in society before we can place more trust in consent as a legal and ethical marker for human flourishing?
How might our capacity for relational autonomy be enhanced by restructuring the foreground and background rules under which consent is given?
How can we refurbish the law of consent to better promote our capabilities to codetermine the practices of sex and settlement?
Queer theory "seldom lends itself to easy solutions," but applying its lens to settlement provides an opportunity to shake up the underlying assumptions, fears, limitations and normative expectations that influence the practice of settlement. What if there were new ways of doing dispute resolution that recognise properly the changeability, subjectivity and inherent unreasonableness of humans, and the unevenness we inevitably bring to our relationships and settlement processes?
Daniel Del Gobbo concludes:
…negotiation is not a struggle that should constrain our equality seeking, but a process that can expand our imaginative possibility and transformative reach if we conduct yourselves responsibly. In my view, that is what "queer dispute resolution" looks like. [p 327]
Theoretical examinations don't provide neat or easy solutions, but they invite us to reflect on our field and to invent better ways of doing our work. Perhaps dispute resolution theory could benefit from a bit of "queering" to ruffle our feathers and challenge us to think in different ways. Like sex, settlement provides a wonderful opportunity for a mutually pleasurable experience, is sometimes mutually agreeable but less than fantastic, but also has risk of abuse or unfair advantage being taken by one party against the other.
The Power of Parties in Mediation: What is the Mediator's Role?
This guest post has been contributed by network member Robert Angyal SC. Robert is a barrister, mediator and arbitrator. Mediation has been a substantial part of his practice since 1991. His publications include Chapter 13 in M. Legg (ed.) Resolving Civil Disputes (LexisNexis Butterworths 2016), "Advocacy at Mediation: An Oxymoron or an Essential Skill for the Modern Lawyer?" This post is partly drawn from an earlier post on LinkedIn.
https://www.maxpixel.net/Muscles-Show-Popeye-Sailor-Man-Spinach-37118
Outline of post
This post presents some new ideas about the mediator's role with respect to the power of parties in mediation, which it is hoped merit further research. It provides a taxonomy of types of power possessed by parties in mediation and reflects on the relevance of these powers. It questions whether a mediator can in fact know where power lies in any particular mediation and points out that, even if this can be known, power is not static, but dynamic; it can move around over time. Some commentators contend that, where there is a significant imbalance in party power, mediators have a duty to level up the parties' power; others assert that they have a duty not to do this. The post explains that this debate is entirely academic because, in practice, power-levelling is either impossible or prohibited. Nevertheless, and reassuringly, the post concludes by explaining that mediators can perform a very constructive role with respect to the parties' power. If they do, parties' self-determination will be augmented.
A taxonomy of party powers in mediation
Power of parties in mediation comes in a variety of types. The following taxonomy almost certainly is not exhaustive.
Financial power: Big Bank v. Freddie Farmer: huge financial resources v. not very much at all.
Forensic power: Senior Counsel, junior barrister, law firm partner and employed solicitor v. suburban practitioner or no lawyer at all.
Substantive power: Party A's case seems strong to overwhelming on the facts and the law. Party B's case seems weak to hopeless.
Negotiating power: Party A is a sophisticated and experienced negotiator. Party B is an first-time participant in mediation. Party A has invested significant resources in preparing for the mediation. Party B has skimped on preparation in the hope of an early settlement. Party A is realistic about its prospects. Party B is wildly optimistic about its prospects. Party A does all the talking. Party B is interrupted/cut short.
Moral power: Party A's position is in the public interest/promotes sobriety/will slow global warming. Party B's position cheats widows and orphans/promotes tax evasion/threatens old-growth forests.
Gender power: Women may not ask for as much as men. Women "are more concerned with care issues whilst men are preoccupied by notions of justice" (Rachel Field, Mediation and the Art of Power (Im)Balancing, 12 QUTLJ 264 at 267 n. 21 referring to Carol Gilligan, "In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development" Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge 1982).
For a very different taxonomy, with eight categories of power, see Omer Shapiro, "Exploring the Concept of Power in Mediation: Mediators' Sources of Power and Influence Tactics" (2009) 24 Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution 3.
The relevance of power in mediation
Power is relative. If two Big Banks face off against each other, there probably will not be much disparity in power. If both parties to the dispute are female, there is no disparity in gender power.
Further, because there are different sources of power, a party's power from one source may be either augmented or diminished by power from another source. For example, Big Bank may possess enormous financial power but, in a particular mediation, it may have little substantive power (i.e., its substantive case is weak) and, because it is poorly represented, it may lack forensic power. How in this situation one quantifies the overall power of Big Bank is beyond the scope of this post.
Power in mediation can be seen as the ability to get what you want from the other party. In the context of mediation, this probably means getting the other party to sign the settlement agreement that you want.
A party always has the right to end a mediation without agreeing to anything. Given a large disparity of power between the parties, however, this may not be a realistic alternative for the weaker party. If it is not realistic, the greater power of the other party remains relevant.
Can the mediator know where power lies in mediation?
All theories requiring a mediator to take action with respect to unequal power of the parties are based on an implicit but unarticulated assumption: That, in a particular mediation, the mediator can identify where power lies.
In practice, several factors constrain the mediator's ability to do this.The factors include:
The mediator has limited knowledge of the facts, knowing only what the parties have chosen to tell her/him.
The mediator has limited knowledge of the relevant law.
The mediator has limited knowledge of the parties' interests and needs, again knowing only what the parties have chosen to tell him/her.
Financial power: Big Bank has to make a profit. Throwing good money after bad makes no more sense for Big Bank than for Freddie Farmer. Having financial power thus does not necessarily mean that it will be exercised.
Forensic power: There are good silks and not-so-good silks. There are some brilliant suburban practitioners. And, in any event, the forum is a mediation, not an adjudication.
Substantive power: How can the mediator, often with very limited information, understand the respective strengths of the parties' positions?
Negotiating power: This is partly within the mediator's control.
Moral power: Opinions on moral issues differ.
As noted in the previous section, power from one source may be increased or decreased by the party's power (or lack of it) from another source.
Power is not static; it can and does move around during the mediation
Even if a mediator is able to identify where power lies in a particular mediation, it may not remain there. Consider a farm debt mediation where the farm has been mortgaged to Big Bank and the mortgage payments are substantially in arrears.
As long as the value of the farm exceeds the amount borrowed plus accrued interest and costs, Big Bank can be uncompromising and will probably negotiate only about how much time the farmer has to pay the mortgage debt – failing which it will padlock the farm gate and put a "Mortgagee Sale" sign on it. There seems no doubt where power lies.
If, however, it transpires that the value of the farm is less than the amount secured over it, the power relationship is quite different. The bank's legal powers are the same, but exercising them will result in the bank's recovering only part of what it is owed. The farmer's personal covenant on the mortgage probably is worthless. A large amount may thus have to be written off. Heads may roll in the Rural Lending Department of Big Bank.
In the second scenario, the bank may become interested in all sorts of settlements that:
Require the willing participation of the farmer;
Require the bank (at least for now) to forego recovery;
Require the bank to lend more money; and
In effect, require a joint venture between Big Bank and the farmer.
Possibilities include:
Subdivision of the farm for sale as hobby farms;
Novel crops with high value like blueberries; and
Investing in irrigation, pasture improvement, new barns, new dams and new fencing to improve the productivity and value of the farm.
In the second scenario, paradoxically, the farmer's weakness has become a source of power.
Consider a simpler example: the mediation of a personal injury claim. The plaintiff, supported by cogent and thorough medical reports, claims to have an incapacitating and permanent back injury sustained at work. Liability is not in dispute. The plaintiff is in an obviously powerful position.
Then the defendant insurer produces a recent surveillance video, showing the plaintiff lifting weights at a gym. Power instantly shifts to the defendant.
The plaintiff then establishes that the video shows not him, but his twin brother, a triathlete. Power instantly shifts back to the plaintiff.
Competing theories about power in mediation
There are two principal theoretical approaches to mediators' duties in working with power imbalances.
Theory One: The mediator has a duty to balance the parties' power
One party to a mediation may be significantly more powerful than the other.
A significant power difference between the parties may lead to one party dominating the process.
A significant power difference between the parties may lead to a settlement that largely favours the more powerful party's needs and interests.
This is unfair. At the extreme, the result is coerced.
One of the functions of mediation is to redress unequal bargaining power.
The mediator therefore has a duty to the process and/or to the parties to try to balance the parties' power in the mediation.
See, for example: Ali Khaled Qtaishat, Power Imbalances in Mediation (2018) 14 Asian Social Science No. 2 75 at 79; Rachel Field, supra, at 269-270; James South, Heather Allen and Sean McTernan, Balancing Power in Mediation (CEDR – The Second European Mediation Congress) at 3, 4, 6, 9, 14; Amrita Narine "Power Imbalances in Mediation" Student Note, Harvard Negotiation Law Review 2017 at 9ff.
Theory Two: The mediator has a duty not to balance the parties' power
Mediation theory and most mediation agreements require the mediator to be neutral and impartial towards the parties.
"Neutrality" means that the mediator is disinterested in the outcome of the dispute.
"Impartial" means that the mediator treats the parties in an equal and even-handed way.
Disparities in bargaining power are a fact of life inside and outside the mediation.
If the mediator were to take steps to lessen the power of the more powerful party or to increase the power of the less powerful party (or both), in order to affect the outcome of the mediation, she or he would not be acting in a neutral or an impartial way.
The mediator therefore has a duty to the process and/or to the parties not to try to balance the parties' power in the mediation.
See, for example, Rick Voyles, "Managing an Imbalance of Power" (2004); and Susan Douglas, "Neutrality, Self-Determination, Fairness and Differing Models of Mediation" (2012) 19 James Cook University Law Review 19.
In practice, power-balancing is either impossible or prohibited
The debate between the two theories of power-balancing is fascinating but, it transpires, entirely academic. This is because a practical and a legal problem prevent putting power-balancing into practice.
The practical problem:
If a mediator disclosed in their mediation agreement or at the preliminary conference that they intended to engage in attempts at levelling up the power of the parties, it is almost certain that they would not be hired as the mediator. Why would a party spend lots of money preparing for the mediation, on conferences with solicitors and counsel and on preparation of position papers, and then commit to spend yet more money on a mediator whose stated aim was to dissipate the very advantages that had arisen from their careful preparation?
This practical problem is fatal to any theory of power-balancing because – no matter how compelling the theory in favour of power-balancing may be – a mediator who honestly discloses their intended role almost certainly will never have an opportunity to perform it.
The legal problem:
The legal problem is even worse. Assume that the mediator did not disclose in the mediation agreement that they intended to take such steps as in their discretion seemed appropriate to increase the power of the less powerful party, at the expense of the more powerful party, and instead held herself out as neutral and impartial. Attempting power-balancing in this situation not only would breach the mediation agreement but would also render entry into it misleading and deceptive conduct in trade and commerce, in breach of s. 18 of the Australian Consumer Law, which applies to mediators. [note 1]
Even if the mediator said nothing on the issue in the mediation agreement, that silence itself probably would constitute misleading and deceptive conduct, for the reason that the role of mediator gives rise to an expectation in the parties and their lawyers that the mediator will be neutral and impartial, whereas the mediator always intended to act contrary to the expectation but failed to disclose their intention. [note 2]
Thus a mediator who discloses that they intend to engage in power-balancing is very unlikely to be hired as a mediator. On the other hand, a mediator who intends to engage in power-balancing but does not disclose their intention to the parties will probably breach the mediation agreement and almost certainly will breach the Australian Consumer Law. It follows that, unless mediators are prepared to engage in prohibited conduct that may render them liable in damages, they will not in practice have an opportunity to balance parties' power.
note 1: The definition of "trade and commerce" in s. 2(1) of the Law states that it includes "any business or professional activity (whether or not carried on for profit". The definition of "services" in s. 2 of the Law includes "benefits … under… a contract for or in relation to the performance of work (including work of a professional nature)." The confidential and "without prejudice" regime imposed by most mediation agreements cannot exclude the Lawbecause s. 96 provides that the Law "has effect despite any stipulation in any contract or agreement to the contrary."
note 2: See, e.g., Demagogue Pty Ltd v Ramensky(1992) 39 FCR 31 at 32; Miller & Associates Insurance Broking Pty Ltd v BMW Australia Finance Ltd(2010) 241 CLR 357; [2010] HCA 31 at [16]-[33]; and Porges v Adcock Private Equity Pty Ltd[2019] NSWCA 79 at [109]-[110].
Does a mediator have any role with respect to power imbalances?
For the reasons in section 7, the mediator probably has no realistic alternative to taking the parties as she or he finds them.
That does not mean the mediator has to leave the parties in the position in which she or he finds them. Although mediators cannot engage in power-balancing, they nevertheless can play a very useful role with respect to parties' powers.
Reality testing by the mediator in private of the parties' positions may significantly affect their approach. Likewise, reality testing about the durability or enforceability of proposed settlement agreements may affect their approach.
Is there a contradiction between taking the parties as you find them and attempting to shift the parties' positions towards each other so they can settle their dispute?
There is no contradiction: It is a hallmark of legitimate reality testing that mediator does not upset existing power imbalances.
It is the hallmark of illegitimate reality testing that it does upset existing power imbalances by (for example) providing a party with legal knowledge that it has not invested in unearthing ("There's a recent High Court decision on limitations that is right on point and which means that the other party is out of time."). This is illegitimate behaviour because it is not neutral or impartial. Acting other than in a neutral and impartial way creates a risk for the mediator of losing credibility/losing influence/being fired.
Instead, the mediator should accept existing power imbalances and assist each party – given the imbalances – to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of its position and of the other side's position. This analysis can also help a party determine whether offers received or contemplated are better or worse than the party's BATNA.
Women tend to value relationships more than men and thus, for fear of damaging a relationship, a woman may be inclined to ask the other party for less (or offer to pay them more) than a man who has the same BATNA (Babcock & Laschever, "Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide", Princeton University Press 2003). Where appropriate, the mediator can help a party to understand that this is what she is doing. The mediator thereby helps her understand the nature and effect of gender power. By doing this, the mediator enables the female party to decide consciously whether she values the relationship more than the best possible outcome of the dispute, rather than unconsciously making this decision.
The mediator can assist a party to make realistic concessions or to capitalise on a strength itpossesses. This is not balancing power; it is recognising realities about power.
Viewed this way, the mediator's tasks with respect to party power can be seen as (i) helping each party to understand what power they have and how and when they should use that power and (ii) helping them understand what power the other party has and how and when it might use it.
These tasks not only are consistent with being neutral and impartial but also they help the parties to participate effectively in the mediation and thus augment their self-determination.
A comforting conclusion
Reality testing is a core activity for a mediator. The mediator can employ it to help parties themselves to identify issues around power and to exercise their own decision-making about how they deal with it. This enhances party self-determination.
Viewing the mediator's role with respect to party power this way means that the patient, careful, earnest mediation of disputes remains a useful and important task. Practising mediators like me will be comforted by this recognition of the value of what they do for a living.
Reminder about how to be a part of our network
Hello Australasian Dispute Resolution Research Network (ADRRN) followers, I thought it might be time to inform/remind you about our approach to membership. Basically, this network is entirely voluntary and members (you) bear the responsibility to keep in touch with us, because we don't keep a membership list. I'm sure you understand why – we all have quite enough administrivia in our lives already, and the ADRRN couldn't possibly keep track of where people move to as they follow their exciting ADR related careers. We like to see it as an innovative and inclusive way to run an organisation. There are no membership fees, no backroom membership deals, no paperwork, and no hierarchy. We use technological platforms and each individual can decide how it suits them to participate. Everyone's a grown up who keeps themselves informed about the aspects of the network that they are interested in.
To join the ADRRN, follow us here (at http://adrresearch.net). Our blog is our public face and the way we communicate our work to the world.
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Now, to make sure you don't miss out, think about how it suits you to follow us. Options include:
set up an email alert about each of our posts to your email account, you can control how frequently and when the email is sent;
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You, our members, are important to us. We want you to follow our blog, our twitter account, to consider joining our annual Roundtables, to contribute content by commenting or posting, and to otherwise be part of this community.
Our 2019 Roundtable will be held at Latrobe University in Melbourne, hosted by Lola Akin Ojelabi and Jackie Weinberg. You can see the Call for Papers for more information. Our Roundtables are not like other conferences – we insist that the work be in progress and the papers are discussed rigorously with a view to helping the author improve their work before it is finalised. It's amazing what can be achieved when everyone is brave enough to participate in this mutually supportive process. See reflections on our last Roundtable at Open letter of thanks and appreciation #ADRRN18.
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Contributing to our online content
Please think about how you might like to contribute your ideas to the network.
The easiest way is to re-post and/or comment on Twitter, WordPress or Facebook.
You might like to create a post (see suggestions and guidelines below). You can email me Olivia.Rundle@utas.edu.au. I am overall editor in charge of the blog, and I coordinate the many people who also volunteer their time to keep our network active. Each month one or two members ensure that regular posts are made. As a courtesy, we coordinate timing of posts with the monthly editors. We can discuss joining you as a regular author or you might like to volunteer to take on editing for one month.
See Becky's very helpful piece about academic blog posts. We prioritise posts that share scholarly ideas and talk about research in the DR field. Some approaches to content that have worked for our blog in the past include:
Summarising a more substantial academic piece of writing (either by the original author or someone else);
Introducing a new idea that you intend to pursue in your research, perhaps by responding to a current issue or event;
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A series of posts over a month that draw from a new publication
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The ADRRN blog can only be used to share our own or others' academic work. The blog should not be used to promote our commercial practices in law or dispute resolution.
Blog posts work well as half way points between conference papers and academic articles. They can be used to spark ideas for conference papers or articles or to summarise published work. For PhD students, a blog post summarising a chapter of your thesis could work also. You could set blogging as an assessment task for your students and then publish the best ones.
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Home/Boyle Arts Festival/The stage is set for the opening of Boyle Arts Festival
Boyle Arts Festival
The stage is set for the opening of Boyle Arts Festival
BoyleToday.comAugust 4, 2021
Boyle Arts Festival will open tomorrow (Thursday 5th) and while it will be shorter than usual, it will still feature over 20 events, including an impressive mix of live music, visual arts, drama, interviews, street theatre, readings, online film and much more.
The main body of the Festival will run from August 5th until August 8th, while a selection of special online events will run until August 14th. The visual art exhibition 'Crossings' will continue in King House until August 31st while the local Art Trail, featuring visual art from a number of local artists, can be found in various premises and windows, all over town.
(By Brendan McGee)
All of the music, drama and spoken word events will take place in the new venue, The Marquee @ Quarry Lane.
The dynamic folk orchestra NoCrows & Martin Tourish will kick off the live music programme with a special concert on Thursday and Paddy Casey will make a welcome return to Boyle after a five year absence, when he performs some of his most recent songs and a few old favourites, during an intimate concert on Friday night.
Bird on the Wire – the Songs of Leonard Cohen will see singer Pauline Scanlon teaming up with The Whileaways, for an enchanting and atmospheric performance of songs by Leonard Cohen on Saturday evening.
Lizi, Lynda & Ceara are also back after five years and they will host an afternoon concert featuring some classic songs with modern and folk influences on Sunday, August 8th. This concert will be preceded by the launch of a new song; 'Sweet Rockingham' composed by local man Cormac Callery, with music by Donal O'Connor and performed by Gráinne Caldbeck. Also look out for a concert by BAF veterans, The Men Who Knew Too Much, who will play at The Marquee on August 7th.
On Friday, RTÉ News Journalist Carole Coleman will once again host the very popular 'In Conversation' series and this year her special guest will be Professor of Experimental Immunology and Director of The Trinity Biomedical Sciences Institute at Trinity College Dublin, Professor Kingston Mills.
Another one of our very popular events, 'A Naggin of Knowledge' is back again on Saturday, with eminent scientists, Professor Marina Lynch and Professor John F. Cryan.
Other spoken word events will include a reading by author Kevin Barry and local historian Tony Conboy will bring his popular walking tour indoors this year, with an illustrated virtual tour of local interest buildings in Boyle. Both events are on Friday.
Artist Laura Earley, will present an illustrated discussion on her fascinating new book 'Roscommon's Mosaic Tradition' on August 8th.
The classical music programme will include 'John Count McCormack – A Life in Song and Story' on Sunday, August 8th. Matthew Gilsenan from the internationally renowned Celtic Tenors will perform the celebrated songs of the great Irish lyric tenor John Count McCormack, along with a narrative of his life, accompanied by pianist Mairead Hurley.
There will be plenty of drama at BAF 2021 and we are delighted to welcome back Fregoli Theatre, who will present 'Angels' on August 5th. This is a short street theatre piece, created as part of their 2021 residency at Roscommon Arts Centre and supported by the Arts Council of Ireland. The drama is co-directed by Boyle native, Maria Tivnan and Tara Finn.
Beezneez Theatre Company will also present two performances of John McDwyer's funny and heartbreaking 'An Ordinary Man' in King House on August 5th.
The second week of Boyle Arts Festival will feature a number of online video events which will be available to view via our website and on the Boyle Arts Festival YouTube channel.
For the inaugural King House Piano Commission 2021/21, a specially commissioned piece entitled 'Sraith na Búille' (The Boyle Suite) has been recorded and will be premiered on video during BAF 2021. The suite was composed by Dr. Ryan Molloy, who was the first recipient of the new award funded by the Arts Office of Roscommon County Council together with the Arts Council of Ireland, in collaboration with Boyle Arts Festival and in association with the Contemporary Music Centre. Performing with Dr. Molloy are Mossie Martin (fiddle), Alan Kelly (accordian) and Steph Geremia (flute). The video was recorded in beautiful surroundings of the Main Salon in King House and will be broadcast next week.
Local musician, Donal O'Connor has also been commissioned by Boyle Arts Festival to compose two exclusive new songs about Boyle. 'I Am the River' and 'The Queen of Main Street' will also be premiered on video during BAF 2021.
Look out for videos too by harpist, Amy O'Neill performing in Frybrook House, along with artist talks by Susan Mannion and Laura Earley.
Our acclaimed series of lunchtime concerts will also be on video this year, featuring pianist Luke Lally Maguire, soprano Eimear Harper and flautist Molly de Búrca.
The beautifully restored King House will, as always, house the centrepiece of Boyle Arts Festival – the Visual Exhibition. Curated by Paul McKenna, this year's theme is "Crossings", which will bring together leading artists from across Ireland –Work by established artists like John Behan, John Shinnors, Elizabeth Cope, Colin Davidson and Donald Teskey will share space with art from emerging artists such as Linda McCann, Mantas Ponderys, Stephen Doyle and Sian Costello. The exhibition will continue until August 31st and if you are unable to attend, it will be available to view in a virtual 3D tour, via our website www.boylearts.com
With a number of restrictions still in place, this year's Festival will of course be a different experience but the Committee are following Covid-19 guidelines and working to ensure that all events will be as safe, enjoyable and memorable as ever.
A number of events are now sold out but tickets for other events remain available to purchase online at www.boylearts.com and www.eventbrite.ie
Please note that there is no ticket office this year and no tickets will be available at events.
For more information on Boyle Arts Festival 2021 please visit www.boylearts.com email [email protected] Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Boyle Arts Festival is supported by The Arts Council.
Boyle Arts Festival Committee say 'Thank You'
More Arts Festival video's now available to view online
'Sraith na Buille' now available to view on YouTube
Boyle Arts Festival videos now available online

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Bradley Cooper Is Not Really Into This Profile
by Taffy Brodesser-Akner for The New York Times | Photographs by Ryan Pfluger | September 30, 2018
In A Star Is Born, his directorial debut, Mr. Cooper wrangles with the celebrity industrial complex. So you can imagine how this interview went.
Bradley Cooper is not not happy to be on the press tour for A Star Is Born, the movie he specifically, exactingly, meticulously, perfectionistically, obsessively directed, co-wrote and stars in. He worked so hard on this movie. Every detail of it comes from a true thing — something he's learned, something he's seen, something he knows for sure.
What a huge bet this was; what a long haul it's been; what a full-on occupation of the last four years — years in which he, after an Oscar nomination for American Sniper, had his pick of just about any role he wanted.
This is the third remake of the movie, the story of the big male star who plucks the little woman from obscurity and watches her celebrity and relevance rise above his, to tragic consequences. Each one is slightly different, a reflection of the filmmaker himself. Mr. Cooper liked that. He liked that there was an opportunity to reflect himself in there: his romantic view of creativity, his despair of what commerce can do to art. He liked that it was a love story above all those things.
He created Jackson Maine in that image: an earnest, rootsy, behatted rock star whose weary, substance-compromised heart can't bear to see the star-making machinery overtake a sincere, poetic message — a character from another time who is reminiscent of Neil Young or John Fogerty, but is none of those guys exactly. Could a musician like Jackson really draw giant crowds in 2018 the way he does in the movie? It doesn't matter. It's taken on with such grand, Hollywood sexiness that it's easy, when you're watching it, to just round up.
Jackson is not so much jealous of Ally, the character Lady Gaga plays, like in previous incarnations of the movie, but he bemoans how the industry strangles her ability to say the kind of things she did when he found her singing "La Vie en Rose" in a bar.
He's not really excited to sit down and explain the thing.
Which brings us to a hotel in the West Village, a corner booth, him fingering his aviators on the table in front of us, where he is willing to tell me a lot about his movie, where he is willing to share the same set of facts about its making that he's shared with many, many, many other reporters, but he is not willing to go much further.
I wanted to talk about Mr. Cooper's own sobriety, and how it was reflected in Jackson's drug and alcohol addiction. I wanted to talk about fatherhood — how Mr. Cooper has both lost his father and become a father in the last few years — since fathers haunt the movie. I wanted to talk about love. But he wasn't having it.
Listen, he said to me. He gets that I'm just doing my job. But he's not going to get personal with me. He has to promote his movie — he wants to promote his movie — but beyond that? What would telling me anything truly personal really do? "I don't necessarily see the upside of it. You know? I don't."
"You know, here's the thing," he said. Then he smiled, but it wasn't a happy smile, more like a resigned one. "The experience was so incredible, it was such a wonderful, wonderful experience, that it can only go downhill."
What can I say to this? It's fair. He's just spent four years with seemingly total control over a product. Every word, every image, every shirt, every song, every typeface for the credits, all signed off by him. Now he's going to relinquish that control to me?
People want to know, I tell him. People want a deeper sense of where the movie came from. He wanted to show a piece of himself in the movie. This is an extension of that, I told him.
"It's different," he said. "This is because you're creating content."
"But it's your story," I told him.
"I won't have any control, and it really isn't a collaboration."
Sure it is. That's why I'm asking questions.
"You have all the say," he said. "It's not like you're going to show it to me and say, 'Let's work on this section.' You know what I mean?"
So he sat back and told me the same things he told everyone else.
He went to the Actors Studio for his M.F.A. in acting and received a special commendation as the star question-asker of "Inside the Actors Studio" — of many actors whom he'd go on to star alongside. It was there that he met his beloved mentor, Elizabeth Kemp, who died in 2017 and to whom A Star Is Born is dedicated. He felt that once he met her, he was finally able to relax, for the first time in his life. He gave those classes everything he had. It reminded her of something her mentor, Elia Kazan, had once told her, which was that he'd only wanted to work with people who make their work the most important thing in their lives.
He moved to Los Angeles in 2000 after he landed his role on "Alias." He asked J.J. Abrams to send over VHS copies of the dailies to Mr. Cooper's home. He wanted to see how people like Carl Lumbly and Victor Garber and Ron Rifkin approached screen acting. He'd shadow Ken Olin, one of the show's directors, and sit in the editing room, trying to learn how TV and directing work.
He tried to find the truth in every character. "Once you get that fire inside you to tell the story, everything's personal. So, you have to bring up everything. Whenever you create a character, at least for me, you have to find anything you can to tell the truth, right? So, yeah, you're always working off of yourself."
He did it when he played Face in The A-Team, a character that is so superficial that he's called by a body part. Even then, he dug.
Ms. Kemp had told him, "All that stuff you've always been ashamed of, you're now going to turn that into your art, and it's going to heal you, and also make it meaningful, and a productive thing.'"
All the mundane stuff about directing, he loved it. He got to the point where he understood the machinery. He was ready. People told him to direct a pilot or a commercial to get his feet wet, but he didn't want to. He needed skin in the game.
After the blockbuster success of The Hangover, he never had to do a movie he didn't want to again. He took all the work seriously. Directors saw him as someone who worked in the tradition of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. But by the time he finished American Sniper, he had been feeling like he'd done enough acting. He loved it, he loves it. He still plans to do it. But it was time to do more.
"I guess I felt like I wasn't utilizing all of myself," he said.
But it wasn't easy to get someone to hand him a project. "Because you're like, 'I have these big dreams, and I feel these things.' It's like, someone's going to tell you who you are, what you're capable of?" Then he pitched A Star Is Born to Warner Bros., and whatever happened in that room made the Warner people hand over $38 million before marketing costs.
That's why you have to believe in yourself, he decided. That's why you can't let people tell you who you are. They aren't even trying to be malicious. They just truly believe that each person gets one dimension.
He talks about 5 percent faster than my personal processing speed. He wore a long chain around his neck and the things that hung on it were: his late father's wedding ring, a cooking talisman that he wore in Burnt, Jackson's ring and a little flower that his partner, the Russian supermodel Irina Shayk, gave him.
In terms of Mr. Cooper's movie characters, he seems most like Eddie in 2011's Limitless after he takes the first pill that makes him a model of efficiency, intelligence, erudition and culture, but before he begins taking two a day and starts falling off a cliff. The intensity manifests itself mostly through a precision of speech and memory and also by him refusing to make a joke, or to acquiesce to one, lest I misuse a quote from him, though people who know him well told me he's funny. ("I think with interviews, actors and directors, everyone has been burned before," Mr. Phillips told me, as Mr. Phillips himself taped our conversation, lest I misuse any of his quotes.)
"There's always been, like, six characters I've always thought I can play in my life," Mr. Cooper said. "And one of them is a musician." The others are a soldier, which he played in American Sniper; the Elephant Man, which he played onstage from 2014-2015; and a chef, which he played in Burnt and in Kitchen Confidential. The other two he won't tell me.
In 2011, A Star Is Born belonged to Mr. Eastwood, who directed American Sniper. Beyoncé was attached, but then her first pregnancy reportedly delayed filming and ultimately, there were too many scheduling conflicts to proceed. Mr. Eastwood talked to Mr. Cooper about the role, but Mr. Cooper was hesitant. He was 36; he didn't think he could play someone that weathered.
On the last day of filming The Hangover Part II, in 2011, he flew home to take care of his father, who was dying from lung cancer. Mr. Cooper had been caring for him in the year before leaving for Thailand for filming, and now it looked like it was the end. He went home, took his father to an Eagles game, and two weeks later, he held him in his arms when he took his last breath.
In that moment, everything changed for him. "It's a new reality," he said. "Everything, everything. It's not even one thing, it's a whole new world. And it was instantaneous. It wasn't like, months later. It was like, his last exhale, and I was holding him, and it was like, everything changed."
Instead of taking as many good roles as he could find, he decided to apply an even more stringent standard of perfection to his work than before. He signed on to do The Elephant Man on Broadway and in London.
By 2015, he felt ready to play the role in A Star Is Born. Now he looked in the mirror and saw it. "Honestly," he said. "I could see it on my face. I just felt it."
But Mr. Eastwood had moved on. Then one evening, Mr. Cooper watched Annie Lennox sing "I Put a Spell on You" on TV. That night he had a dream about the opening scene of the movie. The actual beginning of the movie is not what he dreamed, but he won't tell me what it was because maybe he'll use it if he's ever allowed to make another movie. Anyway, he pitched his A Star Is Born to Warner Bros. the next day.
He wanted to make a version of the movie in which the man isn't jealous of the woman. He wanted it to be closer to the truth of the way things generally go with people: They fall in love and begin to heal, but eventually it becomes clear that love cannot heal you completely.
He still needed to find his born star, his Ally. He attended a celebration for the opening of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at Sean Parker's house in Los Angeles — Mr. Cooper has been involved in cancer benefits since his father died — and that's where he saw Lady Gaga perform "La Vie en Rose."
"My mind was blown," he said.
She was plutonium, he thought. She would be the thing his movie had that no other movie had. He called her agent and asked for a meeting. He went to her home in Malibu and there was a piano in the living room.
"She was so open," he said. He asked her if they could sing a song, and he began to sing "Midnight Special." They downloaded the sheet music and sang it together, with her on piano. After one verse, she stopped him and began to record a video on his phone.
Mr. Cooper spoke about how much he admired Lady Gaga and how close they became. They spent months preparing and building their relationship, building heat and connection together. When I spoke with her on the phone, she referred to a scene in which Jackson and Ally get into a fight while she's taking a bath. He's drunk and calls her ugly — a soft spot for her character, and herself. The moment isn't in the script, and her devastation is real. "We left a space for there to be both love and hurt at the same time," she told me.
He learned how to play the guitar. He learned how to play the piano. Not just enough to be convincing onstage — enough to be a professional musician.
Now he needed to find a sound for Jackson Maine. He didn't want it to be too country. He didn't want it too exactly anything, because he didn't want to isolate Jackson in a genre. He didn't really sound like Bradley Cooper. He realized he had to drop his voice by an octave, so he went to work with a vocal coach.
"Your voice is everything as an actor," he said. "And if you're not connected to your voice, it's over. It's impossible."
At first, Mr. Cooper was only able to use his new, deeper voice if he hunched his neck forward. Then it became easier, but man, it hurt at first. He began to listen to Sam Elliott interviews — this was the voice he wanted. This even before he had Mr. Elliott over to dinner to ask him to play his brother, Bobby.
When his voice was truly ready, he filmed at the Glastonbury Festival in England, right before Kris Kristofferson, who co-starred in the 1976 A Star Is Born. He filmed at the Stagecoach Festival, and onstage at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. His mission throughout was this: Be authentic. Tell the truth. A musician (naturally, he won't tell me who) told him, "'You better create a character that meets the standards of what it is to be a rock star because no one's ever gotten it right.'"
He wanted to make a movie about a man who wears his hat all the time except for when he's singing — usually musicians wear their hats to sing but take them off afterward. Not Jackson. He's only vulnerable on a stage. He wanted to make a movie about a man who had something to say and held himself and the people in his life to the rigors of that ethic. "What he says in the bar is, you know, 'Talent's everywhere, you know, everybody's talented at one thing or another, but having something to say and a way to say it, that's a whole other bag.' I believe that, you know what I mean?'"
He learned to understand his characters through his dreams, particularly the dream workshop he learned from Ms. Kemp. He created rituals for his character by "tapping" into his subconscious.
This is all great, I told him. It's good information. But now I had follow-up questions, ones based on clues from the movies and biographical information I know from previous interviews — was anything inspired by a specific relationship? What was he thinking in that final devastating scene?
These are the questions that annoy him. Do I really want to know about his love life? Do I really want to know what specific thing he was thinking in that scene? Do I really want to know about his sobriety, and the events that led to it?
Uh, yes. I suggested that people like to know the artists behind the art.
He thinks that's silly. "Any time you do anything, you have to find personal things of yourself, but no, I mean, I felt like I was him. I wasn't, like, going, like, back to a moment of my life in that scene."
The movie isn't about him in that way, he said. It's just by him and of him. There's no one-to-one correlation of events in his life to events in the movie. There's no one-to-one correlation of emotion, either, and in the parts that are specific, well, they're for him to know. He made the movie because creating art helps us heal one another. "That's the whole point of creating art, trying to somehow deal with the desperate reality of being alive, you know?"
I have a story to write, I told him. I'm not sure what to do. Coming back with a good story is my thing, I said. He saw I was dismayed, and again, I seemed nice, so he tried to explain it. "It's wonderful that people want to ask me questions. I just find that no matter how much time we spend together, it's only by spending time and doing something with somebody that you start to get to see how they work and how they interact with other people and who they are, you know? You couldn't get to know me in this scenario just as much as I don't know who you are."
He was nice, too. He just didn't want to be known the way I wanted to know him.
A Star Is Born is a portrait of self-destruction. It's a story of love between two superstars and the codependence that festers between them. It's about being cruel to people you love. It's about the lure of the drunken haze and the way people can enable you. Ally's rise doesn't diminish Jackson's star; he is the agent of his own ruin.
I saw the movie again, and then I reread my transcript, and this time I understood. The movie is about all the things above, but mostly it's about the way that commerce interferes with art — how people who aren't artists pretend to know what art is, and how an artist has to protect himself from what the machine asks of him. Meaning that, in its own way, it's also about this profile.
People read these kinds of stories for the same reason they go to the movies — because they're curious about how a person shows up in a performance or a script or a shot.
This article has been edited for girlsspeakgeek.com. The complete story appeared in The New York Times Sept.2018.
September 27, 2018 | Interview Bradley Cooper | this post contains affiliate links


The restaurant interior, it must be said, does not inspire one with much hope that the dining experience will be a good one. The restaurant is very badly laid out, is definitely poorly maintained and shabby, and the cleanliness of the carpet, along with the general untidiness, is a bit disheartening indeed. Still, the rest of the experience, I have to say, does tend to make up for these shortcomings in large measure.
The tables feature inlaid grills, as one usually finds in this sort of restaurant, but, since I was dining solo, I didn't try any of the meals that require this equipment and, instead, opted to choose from the appetizer menu only. I also note that there were bell buttons supplied for each table to summon the waitress but, actually, the young friendly young woman, who appeared to be the only wait-staff on duty, was so attentive and efficient, that I really didn't need this amenity.
Seaweed Salad – This was a Japanese offering and was very good indeed. It featured two sorts of seaweed, along with agar strips and white and brown sesame seeds, in a dressing that appeared to be chiefly composed of a sweetened sesame oil. No vinegar was apparent, which was a bit surprising, but the taste was very nice. I am sure that one variety of seaweed was kelp, but the other (the very bright green variety) remained a mystery, although it may have been wakame. I asked my waitress if she could identify it but she just shrugged apologetically and didn't, I was a little annoyed to notice, offer to find out from the kitchen. Still, the dish was very good and I unhesitatingly rate it at a 5 out of 5.
Kimchi – This dish was not on the menu and was supplied free of charge unexpectedly. I noted, with some surprise that there were no Kimchi dishes listed on the menu and my waitress informed me that it usually only comes as a side to main course meals. Then, in complete redemption to her failure to resolve the seaweed issue, she offered to bring me a little to taste and, I have to say, that it was excellent. The cabbage it was made from was fermented to the perfect degree of sourness but it still managed to retain the natural sweetness of the fresh product. It was made with Korean powdered chili, rather than Gochujang (which yields a completely different taste), and I can honestly say that it rivaled anything my wife and I have ever made. I gave it a 5 out of 5.
Seafood pancake – Although not called as such on the menu, this was basically the 'Pajeon' which is so deservedly popular in Korean cuisine. It contained shrimp, scallop, zuchinni, scallion and shredded carrot in a light batter, and was a bit of a departure from many varieties in that the pancake ingredients were cut into vary tiny pieces instead of long strips. It was also a good deal thinner than other types I have had and the result was a cake that was nicely crispy in places, and delightfully chewy in others. It was better than any of my homemade versions to date, barely needing the soy based sauce that came on the side, and, again, I thought it worthy of a rating of 5 out of 5.
Yakitori – This dish, unfortunately, did not match the quality of the others I sampled. It consisted of very generous chunks of dark chicken meat interspersed with carrot, green pepper and onion and, while I realize that restaurants have to turn a profit, the vegetable quotient was a bit too much. The whole thing was drowned in the sort of sweet and sour sauce that would be at home in a very westernized sort of Chinese restaurant and, while the result was actually not bad, it was a very poor rendition of a traditional yakitori. I could only give this a 2 out of 5.
As an addition to your post, the inlaid table grills are not actually used to grill the food. They bring an electric wok to your table and set it up.
Interesting … maybe the table top ones are defective or too costly to operate?


text:
'Hawks GM Bowman adding to the legacy of his Cup-centric family
Adrian Dater
Sure, it was in his house so much while he was growing up that he could have been excused for thinking it was part of his mother's "good silver" from the dining room. It was all due to the work of his famous father, William Scott "Scotty" Bowman, who would go down as the greatest coach in NHL history and stand in stature with guys like Lombardi, Rockne and Auerbach. But Stanley Bowman was going to go about a quiet life at an accounting firm and prefer to be called Stan and that was that.
There was a job at Arthur Andersen straight out of college, and for five years Stan Bowman lived a perfectly respectable 9-to-5 existence.But something kept calling him back to thoughts of a life in hockey, and much to peoples' surprise that something was not his old man. The way Scotty saw it, if his son wanted to live a life apart from pro hockey's cutthroat, rigorous, out-of-a-suitcase existence, well, that was just fine. Goodness knows there was plenty of guilt already in Scotty Bowman's brain after a life spent so often apart from wife Suella and his young kids while working in Montreal and, later, Buffalo, Pittsburgh and Detroit.
If the schedule ever permitted, wherever Scotty Bowman was, he always hopped the first redeye back to his family. But he knew he wasn't going to be able to go down as the greatest coach in the game and always be there for the family.
After his first few years out of Notre Dame, however, Stan started to realize that lifting a Stanley Cup himself some day -- or at least attempting to make it happen -- would make for a sexier life than poring over numbers on a corporate spread sheet.
"I realized I had a passion for sports all along, and wanted to get into hockey," he says. "I know some people might have the perception that I ended up getting into the game because of my dad, but I know the truth and know that he really didn't exert any influence at all in making it happen. I worked my way up here, and started here 10 or 11 years ago when my dad was still coaching in Detroit."
"Here" remains Chicago, where Stan Bowman is the general manager of the defending Stanley Cup champion Blackhawks. Yes, there are still some snickers in parts of the hockey world over the son of a hockey legend just so coincidentally having a powerful position on a team in which his father is also on the payroll -- as a senior adviser of hockey operations. Stan Bowman isn't trying to con anyone -- sure he's gotten and continues to get valuable help and advice from his father. Who wouldn't want to tap the mind of Scotty Bowman if they had the chance in this game? But Stan is through worrying about what others might think. Battling Hodgkins lymphoma -- which thanks to a stem cell transplant at the Mayo Clinic in 2008 has been knocked into remission -- helped teach him to do that. But he'd long had a wiser perspective on life, growing up with an older brother, David, who was born with hydrocephalus -- a neurological disorder that left him blind and mentally disabled.
"I think I'm someone who appreciates the important things in life and doesn't worry about the things that, really, mean nothing," Stan says.
He got his big break in the game from former Blackhawks GM and fellow numbers-lover Mike Smith, and went to work in the lower levels of management in 2001 for a team that was trying its best to keep Stanley Cups out of Father Bowman's hands again.
"I realized early on, even before I got into hockey, that you can't control what people are going to say about you," he said. "My dad had his share of run-ins with the media over the years, and he always told me 'they're going to write what they want to write and you've got to do what you think is best and you can't be swayed by that.' All I can do is my job and people can say what they want."
Thing is, nobody who actually gets to know Stan Bowman ever has a bad word to say about him. The joke has often gone that he's nothing like his father -- he's actually a nice guy who treats others well and with respect. Stories about his father's ruthlessness with players are legendary, perhaps none more so than when as coach of the St. Louis Blues in the late 1960s, Scotty would sometimes drop in at the favored bar of his players and plop a coin in the jukebox to play Fats Domino's "Kansas City" -- which just happened to be the city of the team's minor league affiliate.
"I'm going to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come..."
"Yeah, I know, I know the reputation my dad had," Stan says with a laugh. "But he's certainly mellowed over time. And I think athletes of today are different from what they were 30-40 years ago. You can't treat them the way you could then. They don't respond. It's a different world we live in, a different culture, in terms of players just having more power now. They have more of a voice. To try to manipulate them in the way that used to work just doesn't anymore, and I don't think that's really my style anyway."
Stan Bowman received his fair share of credit in helping turn around the Blackhawks after he replaced Dale Tallon as GM in July 2009, culminating last June with Chicago's first Stanley Cup since 1961. And he's received his fair share of blame for what some have called an underachieving season so far. At this writing, Chicago was only three points above ninth place in the Western Conference after a ghastly 5-0 loss at Dallas Thursday night.
Beset by salary-cap problems -- some of which could arguably be traced back to some of Tallon's decisions -- Bowman was forced to offload popular players such as Dustin Byfuglien, Andrew Ladd, Kris Versteeg and Antti Niemi shortly after winning the Cup. The Blackhawks have missed Byfuglien's hybrid game and overall swagger, and not everybody is sold on youngster Corey Crawford being an adequate replacement for Niemi in goal. After Thursday's loss in which he was pulled early, Crawford had allowed three or more goals in each of his last six starts.
Yet, even after Thursday, the Blackhawks were 9-2-2 in their previous 13 games.
"I think we started the year with a lot of unfamiliarity. It takes time to sort that out, as much as nobody wants to acknowledge that," Bowman says. "It takes time to know where guys fit in -- are you a third-line player, are you an offensive player, are you a penalty killer? What's your role? We had a lot of new faces and not a lot of time to figure it out. We had the busiest first six weeks of the season, schedule-wise. We had a ton of games and not much practice time. Before you knew it, we're in the middle of November and hadn't gotten our legs under us and were playing catch-up. But in the last month or so, we've finally come together as a group, where everybody knows where they sort out in our lineup."
At the top of the food chain is captain Jonathan Toews, who has been nothing short of terrific, with points in 13 of his last 15 games and goals in eight of his last 10. "He's been unbelievable," Bowman says. "We've just seen him evolve, even though he's still so young, to where he's the guy this year. We had a lot of other veterans last year where he didn't have to carry the leadership like he's had to this year. It's been impressive. We don't have to worry about him and some of our other top guys with motivation and drive, and that makes it so much easier for everyone else to learn from. One of the things my father was always so good at was finding a way to get his most talented players to be his best players. If you don't do that, you're never going to have success. It sounds very easy, but it actually can be the hardest thing to do because your best players can be finicky and they have egos and may want to be handled differently. But he was always so good at getting the best out of his top players."
Stan Bowman readily acknowledges he talks almost daily to his father, bouncing ideas off him, seeing what he thinks. But father calls on son for ideas a lot, too, and why not?
Who wouldn't want to consult with the GM of an Original Six team, whose name is on the Stanley Cup?
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