Mentoring is one of the most powerful things you can do in your career, and most people aren’t doing it. Not really. They’ll grab coffee with a younger colleague once a quarter, offer a vague word of encouragement, and call it mentoring. That’s not mentoring — that’s being polite. Real mentoring is intentional, consistent, and honest. It requires you to invest time and energy in someone else’s growth without any guaranteed return on your investment and creates a chain of better professionals and better results that extends far beyond the original relationship.

Think about the professionals who shaped your career.
Continue Reading The Power of Mentoring

Lance Estervig, 54, Died, 17-Year-Old Girl Seriously Injured in Lake Pleasant Dump Truck Collision on Carefree Highway by 87th Avenue

LAKE PLEASANT, ARIZONA  (March 17, 2027) – A 54-year-old man from Phoenix identified as Lance Estervig has tragically died, and a 17-year-old girl was injured in a Lake Pleasant dump truck crash.
Maricopa County officials are saying that the collision took place around 11:45 a.m. on March 16. A dump truck hauling gravel was heading down State Route 74 in the eastbound lanes.
That truck failed to slow down and rear-ended a white Jeep Grand Cherokee before crashing into a black…
Continue Reading Lance Estervig Killed in Lake Pleasant Dump Truck Accident on State Route 74

A year after the Trump administration came after law firms, the dust has still not settled.  (Just last week, the DOJ both withdrew and then refiled its defense against the law firms that sued the administration for unlawful targeting.)  But it is worth taking a step back and considering what we have already learned about … Continue reading Negotiation Theories for Law Firms…. →
Continue Reading Negotiation Theories for Law Firms….

From FOI Professor Andrew Mamo: Hiro is pointing us toward a broader set of conversations that directly implicate our field, including but not limited to Gadamer-Habermas, and I agree that these debates should be far better known within the dispute resolution field. The distinction between strategic and communicative action, for example, poses hard questions for … Continue reading Habermas, AI, and more: post by Andrew Mamo →
Continue Reading Habermas, AI, and more: post by Andrew Mamo

Here’s a debate about whether generative AI threatens the survival of key civic institutions – followed by a conversation with RPS Coach about these issues that may surprise you. Woodrow Hartzog and Jessica M. Silbey wrote How AI Destroys Institutions.  Here’s the abstract. Civic institutions—the rule of law, universities, and a free press—are the backbone … Continue reading Will AI Destroy Institutions? →
Continue Reading Will AI Destroy Institutions?

At Berk Law Group, we know many families begin looking online for answers during stressful and uncertain times. They may be trying to understand who inherits when there is no will, whether a vulnerable adult may be experiencing financial exploitation, or whether guardianship or conservatorship may be necessary. While articles and videos can be helpful, they do not always make it easy to work through how the law may apply to a particular situation.
Indeed, many clients come to us without knowing which questions to ask or what information is most important to provide.
These tools are intended to help…
Continue Reading Berk Law Group Launches Free Arizona Probate & Elder Law Tools

Defamation can cause detrimental damage to your reputation — personally, professionally, and publicly. While defamation happens both online and off, social media platforms in particular are a hotbed! And what’s worse is their algorithms thrive off it.
Afterall, controversy increases engagement and engagement increases profits! Not yours, though… In fact, a damaged brand often leads to lost opportunities and financial harm.
Defamation on Social Media
Defamation can come in two forms on social media: libel and slander. Libel is defamation communicated through a fixed or permanent form, whereas slander is defamation communicated orally.

  • Examples of libel on social media

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Continue Reading What To Do If You’re Defamed on Live Stream

In the space of two weeks, the field of dispute resolution lost Robert Baruch Bush, the prophet of the transformative model of mediation, and the world lost Jürgen Habermas, the philosopher whose theory of communication and rationality provides a normative justification for much of dispute resolution—even if few American legal scholars in this field engage … Continue reading On Habermas & Bush: from Andrew Mamo →
Continue Reading On Habermas & Bush: from Andrew Mamo

I learned of Jurgen Habermas’s death at 96 while I was teaching my Negotiation intensive course and my students were engaged in a complex multi-party consensus – building exercise. As we debriefed, I asked if they had heard of Habermas and all said No, despite the fact that many were Political Science majors in college. … Continue reading On Habermas: from Carrie Menkel-Meadow →
Continue Reading On Habermas: from Carrie Menkel-Meadow

Summary: A new federal reporting requirement for non‑financed transfers to irrevocable trusts.Effective March 1, 2026, the new FinCEN Residential Real Estate Reporting Rule requires a federal filing whenever residential real estate is transferred without financing to a trust or other legal entity.  This reporting requirement applies to irrevocable trusts and other non‑grantor entities, but it does not apply to standard revocable living trusts.  A designated ‘reporting person’ involved in the closing—typically the title company or closing attorney—must submit a Real Estate Report to FinCEN identifying the property, the parties, and the trust’s beneficial owners.  This nationwide rule replaces prior limited reporting…
Continue Reading New FinCEN Residential Real Estate Reporting Rule

I have written often about the flaws in the Medicare Advantage program. It seemed a good idea when it was conceived. Pay private insurance companies a fixed amount to provide necessary medical care to a Medicare enrollee. If it costs less than the fixed amount to care for the beneficiary, the company gets to keep the difference. If it costs more, the company has to pay the extra. The taxpayers get certainty and the expected advantage of a private company that can provide health care efficiently. Medicare Advantage was touted as a win-win that would save the taxpayers money. Except…
Continue Reading We All Pay For Medicare Advantage Abuses

Summary:  Increase in federal estate tax exemption affects testamentary powers of appointment.If your estate plan includes an inheritance protection trust for a child or other non‑spouse beneficiary, that trust likely gives the beneficiary a testamentary power of appointment.  This power allows the beneficiary, at their death, to decide who should receive any remaining trust assets.  When estate tax exposure was a common concern, this power had to be drafted as a limited power—meaning the beneficiary could redirect assets only among a defined group of people and never to themselves or their creditors.  A limited power of appointment keeps the trust…
Continue Reading Increase in Federal Estate Tax Exemption Affects Testamentary Powers of Appointment

The difference between libel and slander in Arizona can be confusing at first glance. Both are considered defamation, which involves false statements that harm a person’s or a business’s reputation. The way these statements are communicated, and how courts evaluate them, can have an impact on how the claim proceeds under Arizona law.
For those dealing with libel vs. slander in Arizona, knowing the differences can help identify whether legal action is appropriate. A qualified defamation lawyer may provide clarity on whether a situation may result in civil defamation claims and what the next steps are. 
This article explains…
Continue Reading Libel vs. Slander: Key Differences in Arizona Law

Maybe you are new to Estate Planning and would like a collection of brief articles to provide clarity and confidence as you build your estate plan?Well, this 35 page booklet is for you.  We share this with prospective clients as a professionally spiral-bound booklet, but you can get it all right here as a downloadable PDF.  No email address or credit card required. A Practical Guide to Estate PlanningA collection of brief articles to provide clarity and confidence as you build your estate plan.
Continue Reading New to Estate Planning?