In this episode Colin interviews Brad Porteus, founder of BridgeGrades.org, a report card for Congress that grades politicians on how collaboratively or divisively they govern by compiling objective 3rd-party data. Bridge Grades offers citizen voters an alternative lens to evaluate and assess the performance of our United States legislators beyond ideology or party affiliation. Brad was motivated to create BridgeGrades.org because he believes toxic polarization and hyper-partisanship is holding us back. His multi-year quest is to build Bridge Grades into a transparent, open source, crowdsourced, and independently governed system protected from special interests. Durable and self-sustaining, Bridge Grades aspires to be a public utility that offers citizen voters an easy way to sort Congressional bridgers from dividers, creating incentives that can lead toward more collaborative governance for our common interests.

Learn more about BridgeGrades.org

Learn more about Brad

In this episode we speak with Julie M. Walker, an experienced arbitrator and mediator from Denver, Colorado, about a recent scam attempt she experienced and thwarted.  We discuss how to recognize such scams, the best steps to take in response, and the growing prevalence of such schemes.

Learn more about Julie here: https://irelandstapleton.com/people/julie-m-walker/

In this episode, Colin Rule interviews Nelson Timken, founder of http://www.resolveourdispute.com, about mediating court referred cases and the specific challenges involved with handling litigated cases. This conversation builds on many of the points Nelson made in his mediate.com article Mastering Mediation Advocacy: Essential Skills for the Modern Litigator, co-authored with John Siffert.

About Nelson:

Nelson is an experienced neutral whose ADR practice is driven by a deep commitment to fair process, empowering parties, fostering understanding, and achieving results by perseverance. He values impartiality, integrity, and professionalism above financial gain.  His approach to dispute resolution is to continue to work on a case until the parties are satisfied that every avenue of resolution has been explored. He has over 30 years of experience resolving cases in litigation, specialized industry knowledge, a high success rate, innovative approaches to problem-solving, and a commitment to client education. He offers a client-centric approach where self-determination is king.

Nelson's website is at https://www.timkendisputeresolution.com/ and https://www.resolveourdispute.com/ 

His mediate.com profile page (with a list of his articles) is at https://mediate.com/mediator-profile/Nelson-Edward-Timken/ 

In this episode, Colin Rule interviews Susan Hansen, Casey Holtz, and Michael Dwyer about their chapter in the book Family Dispute Resolution: Process and Practice. Their chapter (chapter four) is titled "A Mediation Model for Self-Represented Parties" and it covers the development of (and lessons learned from) the Family Mediation Center in Wisconsin, including the essential rule changes that opened the way for a major expansion of the role of mediation in the state.

This podcast is part of a continuing series interviewing authors from Family Dispute Resolution: Process and Practice.

About the book:

"Over the last 50 years family justice systems in the United States and elsewhere have evolved from a predominant adversarial approach focused on litigation to the significant integration of more collaborative, settlement-oriented approaches, especially mediation. In Family Dispute Resolution: Process and Practice some of the field's leading practitioners, researchers, teachers, and policymakers provide an overview of the modern family dispute resolution processes designed to help separating and divorcing parents make decisions about the future of their families.

Buy it here: 

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/family-dispute-resolution-9780197545904

https://www.amazon.com/Family-Dispute-Resolution-Handbook/dp/0197545904

In this episode Colin interviews Anne-Marie Cade, an award winning Lawyer, Mediator, Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner, Conflict Resolution Specialist, Parenting Coordinator, Speaker, and Trainer. They speak about Anne-Marie's experience as a mayor, her work as a divorce coach, and her takeaways from her international study on Parenting Coordination.

After practicing law for over 15 years, Anne-Marie realized that what she was most interested in was relationships. She decided to begin training in mediation and coaching and established her own consultancy. She now works with corporate teams and local government to help them navigate conflict effectively and turn challenging confrontations into learning conversations. She also assists families who are experiencing a life crisis like divorce to resolve their disputes peacefully. She was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 2020 to conduct research internationally in 16 cities in “Best Practice in Parenting Co-ordination” with a view to informing the implementation of the practice in Australia. 

She is also an NLP Master Practitioner, a certified Divorce / Conflict coach, has training in Transformative Relationship Mediation, Brain Based Conversation and Coaching Skills (The Neuroleadership Institute), training in Applied Neuroscience and Brain Health and is also a Mental Health First Aider.

Anne-Marie was named Australian Mediator of the Year 2023 at the Australasian Law Awards and Conflict Coach of the Year in 2024.

More about Anne-Marie: https://annemariecade.com/about-me/

More about Divorce Coaching: https://www.divorcecoachesacademy.com/divorcecoach

An article from Anne-Marie at Mediate.com: https://mediate.com/why-words-matter-the-neuroscience-behind-careful-communication-in-local-government/

In this episode, Colin Rule interviews David Mandel, MA, LPC, the creator of the Safe & Together Model, a transformational approach to changing how systems and practitioners respond to domestic abuse when children are involved. With more than 35 years of experience in the domestic violence and child welfare fields, he has identified how a perpetrator pattern–based approach can improve the ability to partner with survivors, intervene with perpetrators as parents, and improve outcomes for children.

David is also the founder of the Safe & Together Institute, which works with governments and NGOs across the globe, including North America, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Europe. Through their live training, organizational consulting, online learning, and trainer certification, the Safe & Together Institute provides organizations and systems with a wide range of practice change tools. The Model has proven its relevance to multiple sectors, including family court, substance use, law enforcement, mental health, multi-agency efforts, and other disciplines.

David has written or co-written numerous journal articles, book chapters, and position papers, including his most recent one on the alignment of the Safe & Together Model with the children’s best interest framework. The Institute’s work is regularly the subject of research studies, including a current project examining the relevance of the Model in a First Nation context in Australia. He has just published his first book, Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to Transform the Way We Keep Children Safe from Domestic Violence, which is available online through Amazon.com.

Learn more:

In this episode, Colin Rule interviews Morgan Duffy Tregenza (Mo), Founder and CEO of Levelheaded, about her path into the field and her vision for https://www.belevelheaded.com/, a startup mediation service provider in Colorado.

Mo is working hard to turn Levelheaded into the world’s most easy-to-use and prolific mediation platform. Levelheaded's mission is to make the world a less litigious place. She currently serves as the President of the Mediation Association of Colorado where she helps to make mediation readily available in the State of Colorado. She often testifies in the Legislature in advocating for mediation as an accessible and viable option for resolving disputes. Prior to starting levelheaded, Mo ran her own mediation practice.  She's written children's books and designed, developed and launched a photobook app for busy families. 

Learn more about Mo here: https://coloradomediation.org/mediator/court-mediation-services/

Learn about Levelheaded here: https://www.belevelheaded.com/

In this episode, Colin Rule interviews Professor Kelly Browe Olson about her chapter in the new book (that she also co-edited) entitled Family Dispute Resolution: Process and Practice. Kelly's chapter is titled "Intimate Partner Violence and Family Dispute Resolution: Coercion, Capacity, and Control" and it covers the dialogue between victim advocates and family mediators over the past few decades, the importance of screening (not only at the beginning but throughout the mediation process), and issues in the future as mediation moves more online.

This podcast is part of a continuing series interviewing authors from Family Dispute Resolution: Process and Practice.

About the book:

"Over the last 50 years family justice systems in the United States and elsewhere have evolved from a predominant adversarial approach focused on litigation to the significant integration of more collaborative, settlement-oriented approaches, especially mediation. In Family Dispute Resolution: Process and Practice some of the field's leading practitioners, researchers, teachers, and policymakers provide an overview of the modern family dispute resolution processes designed to help separating and divorcing parents make decisions about the future of their families.

Buy it here: 

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/family-dispute-resolution-9780197545904

https://www.amazon.com/Family-Dispute-Resolution-Handbook/dp/0197545904

In this episode, Colin Rule interviews Emeritus Professor from the University of Missouri School of Law John Lande about his experience creating an AI (PrivateGPT) trained on all of his writing over the past forty years. Starting from the beginning, when John didn't know much about AI, he narrates the experience of training an LLM (Large Language Model) on his collected writings and evolving the AI into a coach (called RPS Coach) which is now able to support different types of users (e.g. parties, lawyers, and mediators) helping them find success in their efforts to craft solutions to conflict. We chew over about what this means today, but also where this all may be headed over the longer term as AIs get more powerful and more pervasive throughout the academy and throughout our lives.

You can access RPS Coach here:

https://chatgpt.com/g/g-67bdbff0204c81919bae3f14ac7810dc-rps-negotiation-and-mediation-coach

Some other pieces John has written about his experiences with AI include:

A guide on using RPS coach: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5199282

RPS Coach and bias: http://indisputably.org/2025/03/rps-coach-is-biased-and-proud-of-it/

http://indisputably.org/2025/04/ai-can-help-students-learn-you-get-better-papers-and-you-know-its-theirs/

http://indisputably.org/2025/04/how-you-can-survive-grading-season-with-a-little-help-from-your-friend-rps-coach/

In this episode, Colin Rule interviews dispute resolution giants Bernard Mayer and Peter Salem about the chapter they co-wrote in the new book Family Dispute Resolution: Process and Practice. Peter and Bernie's chapter is titled "Family Mediation" and it covers the evolution of the practice of family mediation over the past few decades and makes some predictions about its future evolution as well. Our conversation takes a wide sweep over the evolution of the field, and even gets into some of the ways recent political changes might affect it moving forward.

This podcast is part of a continuing series interviewing authors from Family Dispute Resolution: Process and Practice.

About the book:

"Over the last 50 years family justice systems in the United States and elsewhere have evolved from a predominant adversarial approach focused on litigation to the significant integration of more collaborative, settlement-oriented approaches, especially mediation. In Family Dispute Resolution: Process and Practice some of the field's leading practitioners, researchers, teachers, and policymakers provide an overview of the modern family dispute resolution processes designed to help separating and divorcing parents make decisions about the future of their families.

Buy it here: 

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/family-dispute-resolution-9780197545904

https://www.amazon.com/Family-Dispute-Resolution-Handbook/dp/0197545904