As we begin to dive into the Spring semester, you’ll find yourself thinking about making flight reservations for the ABA Dispute Resolution Section’s Annual Meeting in April.  We want you to know about a new program we’re testing out: Law Professors’ Teaching Forum: Mediation Shop Talk. It will be held on Saturday April 18, from 2 to 5 pm. 

 

As you know, we already have the very successful Legal Educators’ Colloquium. But conference presentations don’t always allow as much discussion as we’d hope for, so we are adding this informal and interactive program. It will give professors a chance to talk about issues related to teaching mediation, both in simulation classes and clinical settings. 

 

The Forum will be in two parts:

 

·        The first will be a discussion about whether and how to incorporate into our teaching key findings of two recent empirical studies on mediation:  The ABA Task Force Report on Improving Mediator Quality and the Shaw and Goldberg studies of what makes commercial mediators successful or not. 

 

·        The second will be split into simulation and clinical sections.

·        The simulation section will present a variety of ideas for simulations and exercises.

·        The clinical section will focus on interviewing student candidates and on grading.

 

We plan on seeing you there !!