What Could Possibly Be More Interesting Than Us ?

And by us, I mean people who teach ADR in law schools.

I have just completed a year-long data-driven research project looking at the current shape of ADR within the legal academy, along with a look at trends over the past decade.  I learned a ton.  I was sometimes surprised.  Occasionally appalled.  Mostly hopeful.

Some of the findings are relatively basic: How large is the field?  Is it growing?  What do we know about those who are joining the ranks of ADR faculty and those who are leaving it?  How many courses do ADR faculty teach, and what do they wind up teaching?  And so on.

Some of the findings are really interesting:

  • What non-ADR courses are ADR faculty most likely to teach?  (I was surprised.)
  • Does the answer differ, depending on which ADR course you teach.  (Hint, “Yes.”)
  • Does a school’s “rank” or “peer reputation” have any impact on the likelihood of an ADR faculty member teaching there?  (What’s your guess?  I guessed wrong.)
  • Is the field gender-divided?  (I was shocked.)

And then there are statistically significant, data-driven findings that just made me laugh, like:

  • ADR faculty who teach Arbitration are more than 50% less likely also to teach courses in Ethics than other ADR faculty.

The article includes a bunch of pretty charts, tables, and graphs.  And for the truly hard-core, the results of some regressions and the like.

But I also included a two-page summary of the data-driven snapshot for those who don’t want to wade through all the details.

The article,

Islands, Vitamins, Salt, Germs: Four Visions of the Future of ADR in Law Schools (and a Data-Driven Snapshot of the Field Today)

is available for download at:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1446989

It will be appearing in an upcoming issue of the Ohio State Journal of Dispute Resolution.

Michael Moffitt