Yesterday Dwight Golann sent out an email encouraging attendance at the Law Professors’ Forum: Mediation Shop Talk, which will be taking place at the ABA Dispute Resolution Section conference in New York City. In case you didn’t get his message, here it is.
Dear colleagues,
Here is the latest on the Law Professors’ Teaching Forum: Mediation Shop Talk, which will occur at the ABA ADR Section Meeting on Saturday April 18, 2 to 5 pm.
We will discuss how findings of two empirical surveys about what lawyers want from mediators should affect our teaching. The discussion will occur in small groups facilitated by Amy Cohen, Grande Lum and others.
We’ll then split up into simulation and clinical sections. For simulation-based teachers we’ve asked Marjorie Aaron, Hal Abramson, Lela Love and Mike Moffit to present a favorite teaching “shtick” in enough detail that we can take them home and use them. For clinical teachers, Darshan Brach, Alan Kirtley and others will lead a discussion of grading and other issues of interest.
We hope to see you there!
Sorry to butt in, since I’m not an academic, but I can only hope that the discussion will also consider what clients themselves want from mediators, and how to take that into account when teaching. I’ve found in my work that what lawyers want from mediators and what their clients want from mediators are not necessarily the same thing. Riskin and Welsh I think illustrate that all too clearly in their article, Is that All There is – The Problem in Court-Oriented Mediation.