I had a case referred to me by a different law firm (than the one I previously mentioned). Four elderly Chinese businessmen were in a dispute. One pair were the landlords, the other pair were the tenants. After renting to those tenants for almost forty years, the building was pretty rundown and needed not only refurbishment but even some structural repairs. It had also recently suffered a kitchen fire from one tenant and that had precipitated the issues in dispute. The dispute was over who should pay for what.
“They came in because we had once represented the landlords and they wanted to hire our judge for a few hours. We explained that we do not have our own judges. They insisted. We could not even offer to arbitrate because we had already acted for one of the parties in the past. Plus, their English is really broken and we all had a hard time at first understanding what was the problem. We decided to pass the ball to you.”
“Thanks. But why me? I do not speak Chinese (Cantonese) either.”
“Well, they also mostly just wanted to chat the issue over and we interpreted that to mean mediation. They then suggested rather strongly that, after the chatter/judge/mediator tried his best, that person should then decide the solution. They promised to accept that process. Only a few med-arbs out there. None are Chinese. We think you’ll do.”
The clients and I held a meeting in an old Chinatown meeting room. Dragons and everything. Very exotic. They told me that they wanted me to mediate but, if the matter was not resolved by lunchtime, we were to break for lunch and then reconvene so that I could deliver my award. Quite the challenge.
Or so I thought.
And so we went at it. And I threw every mediator trick, skill, smoke, mirrors and manipulations I had at ’em. I tried hard. I was working to get agreement but I could not get conversation! No traction whatsoever! They would not talk! Of course, they were polite, respectful and even ‘played along’ now and then for a few sentences but they did not really reveal a thing. ‘Inscrutable and immutable’ comes to mind.
The hard part about that case was that a mediator doin’ his/her thing, gets a lot of information in the process of doin’ that thing. A mediator engaging clients in the entire story will, eventually, be much better prepared to do the ‘end-game’ arbitration so long as the parties spilled the beans and revealed all.
These guys revealed nothing but the state of the building (an engineer’s report), the cost of repairs (an estimate by a Chinese contractor remarkably lacking detail but undisputed by the parties) and the attributed ‘extra cost’ of the recent fire (a single line in the contractor’s estimate).
After lunch, we continued. I started by summarizing what I had heard that morning. One of them interrupted me and said, “Pardon, Mr. Cox. No more talking. Please now decide.”
Well, that was to the point and so I made my award and they thanked me profusely, wrote the cheque for my fees and left. I heard from the law firm that they were pleased with the outcome, all parties ponied up their share of the repairs, they all renewed the lease and they immediately contracted out the work. It looked like a homerun.
“I don’t get it. I danced the lights out, I wove magic, I spun and twirled and practically turned myself inside out and could not even get them to talk. How is that great? How is that even professional? Honestly, guys, except for their faces when leaving, I was sure it was a dismal failure. I just do not get it.”
“We have a few Chinese lawyers here. They said that the old guys only wanted a gweilo (white person) so that whatever the decision was, they could blame the stupid barbarian gweilo. They wanted that because they wanted to remain in business together but also had to save face amongst themselves. Neither party could ‘give in’ so they found a way to accept even a bad decision if it allowed the continuance of the relationship without having to lose face.”
“So, the decision was at least good enough to get that?”
“Seems any decision was going to be good enough to get that”.
“Hmmm….feel free to refer any more such cases in future.”
Our Off the Grid Home 
Doesn’t seem like a real win if you find out the real reason. I think sometimes it is very difficult to reaaly grasp what’s on a man’s (woman’s) mind, but if they were happy with the outcome, I guess that’s OK
Once had a similar thing in Saudi-Arabia. We had a contract cancelled mid way in the execution, several millions if euro’s involved. So I flew to Bahrein (easier to get into then SA). We had a big meeting with our and their lawyers. I got the suggestion from our lawyers not to speak for the first hour and let the lawyers do the talking . So the lawyers fromboth sides were discussing “violently” for about 3 hours in Arab. There was 1 sheik at the table from the opposing party, who did not say a word like me for 3 hours. So after 3 hours this sheik stands up, lookas at me and says : are you the boss of the company? I said “yes”. So he said, let’s agree on matters between the 2 of us. Case was closed with mutual agreement and with a win-win after 15 minutes . I didn’t understand why the lawyers were first arguing and fighting for 3 hours. After the meeting our lawyer explained : the sheik did not want to lose his face, so first the game was played between the lawyers, and then he could step in and make it look like he made the deal. So diffirent cultures have different ways to solve discussions it seems
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I also had one similar. An old guy with a lawyer vs some young guys with two or maybe three lawyers. After the first get-acquainted meeting the old guys said to me (in an aside) “Mr. Cox, please schedule all meetings for late in the day, say after 2:00? Best times are after 2:00 on a Friday.” When I asked ‘why’ he said, “All lawyers like to talk until they want to go home. Mine, too. As the day wears on, they get to the point. It will be quicker.”
And it was!
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Very interesting story.
What was your ultimate decision?
And my second comment.
If you have damage on your car and need to go to an ICBC claims dept.
Do it on a Friday afternoon for the same reason.
The union employees dont want to stay one minute after quitting time so they will usually give you what you want so they can get the hell outta there.
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Can’t recall…….long time ago….the 4 elder businessmen got a varied portion solution. Normally the landlord has to deal with the building but, in that case, they had done nothing for forty years and the structural was entirely on them. As for the rest, well one guy got a larger chunk of the fire damage (but insurance covered it) and the lesser tenant paid a token amount so as to ‘appear’ fair.
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