There's an ADR-related game of blog tag going on out there around "how I started my mediation practice." Tammy started it, I think, then Diane tagged me. I never want be the one to want to drop the baton, so here goes.
I actually got into conflict resolution because I was a competitive arguer as a teenager. No, really. I did cross-examination debate in high school, and I was pretty good at it -- my team travelled all over the US competing in tournaments, and I won my share of hardware. The thing about debate is you never know which side of the argument you're going to be on, so you have to prepare for both sides. There were plenty of times I won an argument on both the affirmative and the negative, meaning I proved it correct in one round and incorrect the next.
I remember particularly an early round (a prelim) at the Bronx High School of Science my junior year, when we were debating political stability in Latin America. We had to be prepared to debate any proposition concerning that topic. My partner and I came up against a relatively inexperienced team from Alaska who proposed an expansion of the Peace Corps. I quickly got them to agree in cross-examination that their proposal would likely increase economic growth across the continent, and then hammered them with a panoply of disadvantages to economic growth, including three wars and several environmental catastrophes. They were still reeling as they walked out of the room.
The thing was, I was a big fan of the Peace Corps. I had always wanted to join (and I later did, from 1995-1997 in the Horn of Africa). However, I had just roundly defeated the idea, leaving its advocates sputtering in frustration. It planted a seed of disillusionment in me that eventually soured me on debate. It revealed that the point of much argumentation was not getting closer to the truth, but achieving victory. Though I was recruited by many big debate schools I ended up, by design, going to a small college, Haverford, that had no real debate program to speak of.
At Haverford I explored my disillusionment with debate. I was drawn to the competitive aspect of it, no doubt, but I wanted my work to be driven by something more. There were plenty of careers that were in essence professional debate: law, politics, even academia to some degree. But I made the decision to focus on a different goal. I wanted to work to help people come to agreement, not to vanquish my ideological foes with white hot rhetoric. I thought of it as "peacemaking," but I knew I wanted to focus on the practical side, not the spiritual side.
Fortunately Haverford had some great resources to help me learn. Every year the American Friends Service Committee sent in several folks from the Friends Suburban Project to train students in mediation. I was at a Students Council meeting where they asked for volunteers, and I put my hand up. We did a two day training and I was fascinated. I eventually ended up co-chairing the campus mediation program (Communication Outreach) and writing my thesis (at Bryn Mawr, a more supportive environment, in the Peace Studies program) on Campus Collegiate Mediation Programs. The "realist" professors in Haverford's political science program thought my exploration into the world of conflict management (e.g. Burton's Human Needs Theory, Wilson's global arbitration schemes) a squishy diversion at best, but they did end up awarding me the Ellston P. Morris Peace Prize (though they said I placed second, and awarded no first place.)
In the course of my thesis research I went down to DC to do some research at the National Institute for Dispute Resolution (NIDR). Meeting the folks in that office, and reading through the materials in the library there, was a dream come true. My fiancee was already down in DC working at the Department of Justice, so I already knew DC was where I wanted to be. I took an unpaid internship after graduation, which turned into a paid internship over the summer (when the existing intern left), which turned into a real job in the Fall as an Information Services Specialist.
It was a great place to be. I got to meet all the movers and shakers in early 1990s dispute resolution, including the statewide offices of mediation, the community mediators (later to become NAFCM), and the family mediators in AFM. I handled all the external information requests, so I talked to mediators and wanna-be mediators every day, and sent them info about how to get into the field, all on the Ford Foundation's dime. I got to go to conferences (SPIDR, NCPCR, NAME, AFM, etc.) and meet even more people doing this work. I wrote articles. It was very exciting. (As a side note, I was also the office geek, which at the time meant getting the printers to work, but which served me very well when the field of ODR emerged several years later.)
I knew with all my heart I wanted to be in the ADR field, even after my sometimes frustrating experience at NIDR. I remember walking the halls asking advice from the higher up staff in the office. I particularly wanted to know if I could be in ADR without getting a law degree, as it seemed every day I got another call from an unhappy lawyer looking to get out. Tom Fee was the one who told me I didn't need a law degree to do ADR, and for that I remain eternally grateful.
My wife and I left DC after a few years to travel Europe and do the Peace Corps, and we applied to grad school directly from Eritrea. We both got into Harvard, so I came back and studied at the Kennedy School. It was a great fit for my interests; my methodological concentration was conflict resolution, and my policy area of concentration was technology. I took classes at the business school, the law school, and at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts. I met Roger Fisher, Bob Mnookin, Jim Sebenius, Max Bazerman, Howard Raiffa, and many other big names I had only read about before. I also got to work for Larry Susskind at the Consensus Building Institute, right up the street, helping to manage the newspaper Consensus. At nights, I took classes in the dispute resolution masters program out at UMass-Boston with David Matz and Brod Honoroff. That was also where I got to do my first court-connected mediations, with the legendary Dina Beach Lynch.
I made sure to attend all the dispute resolution conferences every year, and after graduation (thanks to my good friend and mentor John Helie) I got a job as General Manager of Mediate.com. Mediate.com was also a great education, as I still got to go to all the ADR conferences (this time as an exhibitor) and build websites for many of the legendary mediators and mediation organizations out there. There's nothing like building a beautiful website to endear yourself to the heart of a mediator you've always looked up to and respected!
After a year or two there, the ODR opportunity was starting to emerge, and I made the case to John and Jim that we should do a spinoff focused on ODR. They agreed, and I got to start Online Resolution. From there I've just been riding the wave of ODR, which has picked up speed but (imho) has yet to crest. I also got to spend a year working with Jonathan Raab in public dispute resolution, which was very interesting, as I still feel my eventual destiny resides in that corner of the field.
So what are the lessons I'd share for new mediators? First, specialize. General dispute resolution practice is really tough, because no one looks up a generalist in the phone book. Expertise opens doors. Thank goodness I wrote my book on ODR, as it has been an excellent calling card. Two, relationships matter. Meet as many people as you can, and be as helpful and generous as possible, because you never know who is going to call with the next opportunity. And three, be creative. Invest in the new thing. Give it all your energy. Focus on the future. When I saw ODR emerging I knew it was perfect for me, and I put all my energy into helping it grow. I had no idea at the time it would bring me to eBay and PayPal, but it did.
This isn't an easy field to succeed in. It's not as simple as wanting it really badly and following some specific recipe. You have to be very entrepreneurial to survive in this field. But it is a very rewarding field of work if you can find a way to sustain yourself. Hopefully we'll make some progress at professionalizing this field over the next decade so that it won't be so hard for new entrants in the future. Until then, starting a career as a mediator will require, in some measure, a leap of faith.