Among all of the great ideas that came up at the ABA DR Section meetings in San Francisco, the idea of creating a group to provide technical advice on integrating ADR concepts into non-ADR courses may have the most impact.  This proposal comes from the one of the shoptalk sessions from the Legal Educators Colloquium on Saturday afternoon.  John Lande (Missouri), who along with Jean Sternlight (UNLV) and Sean Nolon (Vermont) are spearheading the idea, recently sent out an email on the list serv asking for volunteers to serve on the Task Force organizing this project.  The email in its entirety is below.

I had a great time at the ABA conference recently and, if you were there, I hope you did too.

 I am writing to invite you to participate in a new task force of the Law Schools Committee of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution that Sean Nolon, of Vermont Law School, and I are co-chairing.  If you would like to do so, please let me know by Monday, April 26.

There was an enthusiastic response to the ideas for this Task Force at the conference and a good number of people have already volunteered.  If you have already told me that you are interested in participating in the Task Force, you do not need to do so again (though it’s fine to send me a note just to be sure).

 The Task Force is intended to promote ADR instruction in law schools, at least in part by incorporating ADR themes in non-ADR courses.  For example, in teaching almost any doctrinal course, instructors can ask students to discuss facts of a case and how it may have looked from parties’ and lawyers’ perspectives as the case was proceeding, what were the parties’ interests, and what procedures the parties actually did use or might have used to avoid the dispute or deal with it more effectively..

 The Task Force will consider ideas suggested in an article that Jean Sternlight and I wrote [The Potential Contribution of ADR to an Integrated Curriculum: Preparing Law Students for Real World Lawyering, 25 Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution 247 (2010), available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1553800], to develop materials to help faculty (especially those who don’t teach ADR) who want to incorporate these ideas in their courses.  The Task Force activities might include (but not necessarily be limited to) some or all of the following:  (1) assessing what help instructors in non-ADR courses might want, (2) developing guides for ADR faculty who want to serve as resources for colleagues in their schools, (3) developing bibliographies and resource kits of readings, exercises, videotapes, etc.,  (4) encouraging textbook authors and publishers to address ADR themes in textbooks, (5) developing new materials for use in particular courses, and (6) making recommendations to address ADR themes in admissions criteria and bar exams.

We plan to have a conference call in late May or early June to start on this project.  After we identify people who are interested, we will schedule that call.

If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch with me or Sean.  My contact information is (573) 882-3914 or landej@missouri.edu.  You can reach Sean at snolon@vermontlaw.edu or (802) 831-1376.

Thanks,

John