On Saturday, Feb. 25, the Harvard Negotiation Law Review is sponsoring a symposium entitled “Does ADR Work?
Evaluating the Effectiveness of Alternative Dispute Resolution.”  Here is the symposium announcement:

Saturday, February 25th

Check-in at 9:30 AM • Reception to Follow at 5:00 PM

1515 Massachusetts Avenue • Cambridge, MA 02138 • Austin Hall, North Classroom

 Keynote Address by Carrie Menkel-Meadow

A.B. Chettle, Jr. Professor of Dispute Resolution and Civil Procedure, Georgetown University Law Center,

and Chancellor’s Professor of Law, University of California, Irvine School of Law

11:30 AM • Lunch to Follow

{Panel 1}
Co-optation of ADR: Has it Become “Cheap Justice”?

10:00 – 11:30 AM: Is ADR a form of “cheap justice”? This panel will look into the complicated balancing act between fairness, public accountability, and cost, and whether the parties’ interests are appropriate addressed.

Cathy Costantino, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

Howard Gadlin, National Institutes of Health

Lawrence Susskind, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Rory Van Loo, Harvard Law School

Nancy Welsh, Dickinson School of Law at Pennsylvania University

{Panel 2}
ADR in the Criminal Justice System

1:30 – 3:00 PM: ADR features prominently in the criminal justice system in the form of negotiation (plea bargaining) and increasingly through the use of practices and institutions such as restorative circles, victim-offender mediation and problem solving courts.  This panel will examine the appropriateness of these methods of ADR, how well they are working, and how they can be optimized to serve society’s interest.

Julian Adler, Red Hook Community Justice Center

Eric Blumenson, Suffolk University Law School

David Breen, Boston University School of Law

Christopher Dearborn, Suffolk University Law School

Michael Sullivan, Ashcroft Group and Former U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts

{Panel 3}
Quantitative and Qualitative Methods of Evaluating ADR

3:15 – 4:45 PM: In order to determine whether ADR “works,” there must be a way to measure its effectiveness. But can the effectiveness of ADR be evaluated? And are quantitative or qualitative measures the appropriate method of evaluation?

Robert Bordone, Harvard Law School

Dwight Golann, Suffolk University Law School

D. James Greiner, Harvard Law School

Janet Martinez, Stanford Law School

Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Georgetown University Law Center,

University of California, Irvine School of Law

This event is free and open to the public • Optional RSVP at hnlr.org

Sponsored by the Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy Fund, the Program of Negotiation at Harvard Law School, and the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program