This was the question I had to answer when planning a lecture. I was a speaker in a course offered by the Universidad Monteavila in Caracas, Venezuela. My wonderful colleague, Rafael Gely, organized this collaboration with Missouri’s DR Center to provide a series of speakers, including me. My Venezuelan colleague told me that I could … Continue reading If You Had Only One Hour to Describe ADR, What Would You Say?
From TFOI Rachel Viscomi and Lisa Dicker: After the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and too many other Black Americans, protests across the country built what became one of the largest movements in American history. Yet many activists in the U.S. felt that what resulted were only piecemeal reforms and lip service. … Continue reading New Report on “Power, Protest, and Political Change” from the Harvard Dispute Systems Design Clinic
I just wrote this post on the Kluwer Mediation Blog on this subject. It summarizes empirical research showing the huge chasm in perspectives between many lawyers and their clients. Lawyers often focus only on monetary issues in legal disputes, which drives many of their clients crazy because they are also very concerned about a wide … Continue reading Lawyers Are From Mars, Clients Are From Venus – and Mediators Can Help Communicate in Space
From FFOI Rachel Goedken: On Friday, Feb. 26, from noon to 5:00pm CT, the Creighton University School of Law will be hosting its annual Law Review Symposium virtually. This year’s topic is Alternative Dispute Resolution in the Business Setting and will celebrate the 15-year anniversary of the Werner Institute. This outstanding program combines the latest … Continue reading Creighton Symposium on ADR in Business – February 26
Imagine that you just stared into the neuralyzer in Men in Black. It wiped out all your memory of the traditional bundled of models of mediation and negotiation. You know – facilitative and evaluative mediation, interest-based and positional negotiation, etc. etc. The neuralyzer also vaporized all references to them in texts and teaching materials. You’re … Continue reading Merging Mediation Models – And Other Lessons
Everyone knows that lawyers should carefully assess their cases at the earliest appropriate time. In cases that are or might be litigated, lawyers often focus primarily or exclusively on estimating the expected court outcome (aka the BATNA value). The LIRA book provides guidance for more thorough and systematic case assessments, including values for tangible costs … Continue reading LIRA Videos Out the Wazoo!!
The LIRA book – Litigation Interest and Risk Assessment: Help Your Clients Make Good Litigation Decisions – focuses on civil litigation. It describes three elements that practitioners and parties should consider when assessing litigation interests and risks: (1) the expected court outcome, (2) future tangible costs of continuing to litigate, and (3) future intangible costs … Continue reading LIRA in Criminal Cases
The good folks at the Association for Conflict Resolution of Greater New York and CUNY Dispute Resolution Center at John Jay College invited me to give a talk as part of their monthly breakfast series. Last week, I gave a presentation, Helping Parties Make Decisions About What’s Really Important, which synthesizes ideas I have been … Continue reading Concepts That Can Help Practitioners Help Parties Make Decisions in Disputes
Debra Berman wrote Is Our Over-Emphasis on Integrative Negotiation Pedagogy Falling Short of Reality?, which prompted responses by several colleagues on the DRLE listserv. My answer to Debra’s question is that our over-emphasis on integrative negotiation pedagogy does fall short of reality. We know that much – probably most – negotiation and mediation of civil … Continue reading Problems with Teaching “Integrative” Negotiation
From EFOI Debra Berman: In our zeal to teach integrative bargaining, many of us tend to use negotiation role-plays that have multiple items to creatively bargain about. But is that actually doing a disservice to our students? While I certainly believe it is beneficial to teach our students to think outside of the box and encourage … Continue reading Is Our Over-Emphasis on Integrative Negotiation Pedagogy Falling Short of Reality?
