MUSINGS OF A MEDIATOR GONE GLOBAL - PART 1
I boarded the international flight in Newark, NJ. Twenty-two hours later, I
looked out the plane's window as it headed down a wide open plain,
surrounded on either side by mountains almost as beautiful as the Alps.
Ahead, lay Sofia, Bulgaria. I pondered in those moments how I had arrived
here.
Only a few months before, like many Americans who try to stay involved in
the political system, I had become quite frustrated. Although my mediation
practice was going well, I could see no way to make a meaningful personal
contribution back to society. Making political contributions, attending
dinners with identical menus, listening to hackneyed speeches, just didn't
seem satisfy me. I wanted something more. I wanted to make even the
smallest difference.
So, I began a search on the internet, seeking options that could use my
experience and skills.. As a long time member of the American Bar
Association, I discovered its ABA/CEELI program. CEELI is a public service
project of the American Bar Association designed to advance the rule of law
by supporting the legal reform process in Central and Eastern Europe and the
Newly Independent States (NIS) of the former Soviet Union. Through its
work, CEELI helps build the legal infrastructure that is indispensable to
strong, self-supporting, democratic, free market systems. One component of
building a strong free market system, as espoused especially by the European
Union, is alternative dispute resolution programs.
It sounded great for volunteer work and I applied. I was asked to DC for an
interview in early December 2005. At this stage in my career, I couldn't
leave my dispute resolution practice for a long period of time. So, I didn't
expect them to assign me a position, given that they were seeking volunteers
for a long-term period, one year.
In March 2005, I had planned my trip to Vienna to be an arbitrator in the
Willem Vis Arbitration Moot, attended by over 120 law schools world-wide.
Afterwards, we had planned to travel to Spain to visit my son, Gage, who
lives on the Spanish Costa del Sol. Those plans quickly changed when I got
a call offering me a position in Bulgaria as a mediation/legal specialist
for three months, starting in mid April. I immediately accepted.
CEELI's office in Bulgaria is the first one created in 1991. Bulgaria is
CEELI's poster child. As part of a broad portfolio designed to assist
Bulgaria in enhancing its rule of law, USAID funds the Attorney's
Professional Development Initiative (APDI) through its implementer the
American Bar Association Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative
(ABA/CEELI). APDI supports developments in the legal profession in Bulgaria
in three general categories: bar development, mediation and clinical
education. CEELI Bulgaria has succeeded in all of these categories. As a
result, in 2007, Bulgaria is slated to enter the European Union.
I was coming to Bulgaria to assist in the development of mediation. And now
I was about to land in a city, which, by many accounts, still raggedly wore
the recent cultural and political remnants of communism. I wondered how
the transition from communism had affected not only the political landscape
but also the psyche of the Bulgarian people. After all, in 1989, after the
Berlin wall fell, the communists simply pulled out en masse, leaving the
country to struggle economically, forcing Bulgarians into long bread lines.
I arrived on a Saturday and was picked up by a person from the office, Rado,
and a driver of a van. Together, they struggled to get my four heavy
suitcases up four flights of stairs to my apartment. Still bleary eyed from
jet lag, Monday morning I met the Mark Lassman, the Director of the office,
outside my apartment building that faced a park and Sofia's huge,
monolithic, cultural complex built by the communists. Mark and I began what
was to become my daily walk through Sofia to the ABA/CEELI office. I liked
him immediately. As I was to learn, his most endearing quality was to give
the Bulgarian staff the rewards and recognition for successes of the office.
Americans would leave in 2007 when Bulgaria joined the European Union. As he
explained, and I agreed, it was critical to building lasting achievements
that the Bulgarian staff attorneys take leadership roles so that they could
refine and continue the rule of law long after we had gone.
This philosophy was to govern my varied and extensive experiences in
Bulgarian mediation, the first of which began the day I arrived at the
office. The Bulgarian people and their commitment to mediation broadened
my view of life and enriched me in ways I could never have envisioned.
Read Part 2