HAPPY 4TH ANNIVERSARY TO DISPUTING!!! – conceived by Karl Bayer and Rob Hargove. These days Disputing is ably managed by Victoria VanBuren. Victoria recently reached out to me and posted some of my materials and now I am a Guest Blogger for Disputing. This ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) Guest Blog was posted on August 12, 2009.
MY GUEST BLOG ABOUT A MEDIATION CONFERENCE:
Blog by Peter Vogel, posted August 12, 2009.
After receiving a Temporary Restraining Order (”TRO”) the Judge ordered a mediation conference between the plaintiff software licensor and their customer in Alabama. The software in dispute was a specialized tax website that the plaintiff had spent many years developing, and after defendant abruptly terminated the license the plaintiff was shocked that the defendant had a competing website providing specialized tax services somewhat a kin to the plaintiff. So the trial judge had no trouble issuing a TRO. As oftentimes happens the Judge ordered me to mediate the case since I was a programmer and have a masters in computer science. My law practice of more than 30 years has always been limited to representing buyers and sellers of IT and Internet services.
Step One – In Depth Review of Plaintiff’s Technology
Since the defendant was in Alabama I arranged a meeting with the plaintiff licensor’s technical staff at my offices a few days before the mediation conference. Plaintiff’s IT staff demonstrated the construction and schema for their data base, and how the website processed data. This exercise lasted a couple of hours, but provided good insight about their IT solution and web business.
Step Two – Review Defendant’s Technology
When the defendant arrived from Alabama for the mediation conference I immediately requested that they demonstrate their website, database construction, and schema. It did not take a lot to determine that the database structures and implementation were not related to the plaintiff’s at all. Further that there were no clues that defendant developed their systems with the aid of plaintiff’s technology.
Settled at the Mediation
The case settled immediately. As a neutral observer of the databases and websites I was certain that the plaintiff’s and defendant’s tax websites were not related. Although on the surface it seemed obvious to most that how else would the developed their website were it not for access and use of plaintiff’s software.
Without question my IT experiences saved both parties from expensive litigation, and allowed them to move on.