In my last post, I described an ABA SDR conference session next month that looks really good. This post describes a session I will be in. I plan to write at least one more post about other sessions and my fellow bloggers and commenters may want to highlight some sessions and events you think that people might be interested in.
I will be in the very last session of the conference (along with my colleagues, Cynthia Alkon, Noam Ebner, and Lydia Nussbaum), on Saturday afternoon at 2:15 pm, and I hope at least a few of you will stick around to keep us company.
If you haven’t booked your flights yet, why not stay over Saturday night and take in a show, see the sights, or have a night out on the town? [Paid for by the NYC Chamber of Commerce.]
Our session is entitled, Preparing Students for the Future of Dispute Resolution: Skating to “Where the Puck Is Going, Not Where It’s Been.” The title is based on the approach of hockey star Wayne Gretzky, who said that he always tried to skate “to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” Analogizing the “puck” to the dispute resolution field, our program will address where we are going and how, as legal educators, we can best prepare our students to “skate” there.
My fellow soothsayers and I will briefly each give our own perspectives on the future. Most of the session will be a discussion with the audience about major changes you expect in the coming years that will affect legal and dispute resolution practice, how these changes would affect legal and dispute resolution practice, and how they would affect your teaching and the skills that you emphasize.
Spoiler alert: I plan to refer to Yogi Berra’s insight that it’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future. (Actually, lots of people said the same thing, but Yogi was my favorite philosopher even though he never said half the things he said.)
Double spoiler alert: I also plan to mention my article, My Last Lecture: More Unsolicited Advice for Future and Current Lawyers, which I am particularly proud of and has been popular on ssrn. It collects the most important things I try to convey to students. I think of it as something to assign at the beginning of a semester, though it would also be really useful for students to read as they are about to graduate.
The conference is just one month away. I’m really looking forward to seeing folks there.
