From FOI, Professor Elayne E. Greenberg, St. John’s University School of Law:
It is my great pleasure to announce that the nationally respected dispute resolution and procedural justice scholar Donna Shestowsky, a professor of law and Martin Luther Kind Jr. Scholar at UC Davis, will receive St. John’s 2016 Mangano Dispute Resolution Advancement Award.
The $5000 annual award honors scholars whose published empirical research has furthered the advancement and understanding of the values and skills of dispute resolution. It was established through the generosity of Hon. Guy J. Mangano ’55, ’83HON, who has dedicated his 40-year career to promoting dispute resolution, first as presiding justice of the New York State Appellate Division, Second Department, then as a state legislator, and now as an arbitrator and mediator
Professor Shestowsky was selected for the groundbreaking empirical research she reports on in her Iowa Law Review article, “The Psychology of Procedural Preferrence: How Litigants Evaluate Legal Procedures Ex Ante.” The research is part of a national longitudinal study examining how litigants decide how to resolve their disputes. This work was funded in large part through competitive grants from the National Science Foundation and the American Bar Association, as well as the University of California,Davis.
As overviewed at SSRN, Professor Shestowsky’s article explains how this research could be used to “advance procedural justice and mitigate the negative impact that the economic downturn has had on the resolution of civil cases.” It goes on to analyze: “(1) how attractive litigants find various legal procedures [ ]; (2) how they assess the relative probability that they will use each procedure; (3) how their attraction ratings and “expected use” estimates compare for each procedure; and (4) whether demographic, case type, relationship, and attitudinal factors predict their attraction to each procedure.”
The study reveals that litigants prefer mediation to non-binding arbitration by a wide margin. They also favor bench trials over jury trials, and negotiations involving both attorneys and clients over those involving just attorneys. Overall, her findings suggest that litigants prefer to be involved in their dispute resolution interventions. Professor Shestowsky will report more of her findings in subsequent articles in this multi-part, scholarly series.
I will formally present the Mangano Award to Professor Shestowsky at the Carey Center’s annual reception on March 14, 2016. If you plan to be in New York and would like to attend, please let me know.
The full story can be read at: http://www.stjohns.edu/about/news/2016-02-08/carey-center-announces-recipient-2016-mangano-dispute-resolution-advancement-award .
Please join me in congratulating Donna on this well-deserved award.
