As you may know, a task force of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution’s Law Schools Committee has been working on the Legal Education, ADR, and Problem Solving (LEAPS) Project for almost two years.  (I am a member of that Task Force and on the Executive Committee.)

Our goal has been to increase the instruction of what we call “practical problem solving” (PPS) in law school by integrating it into many different courses.  PPS includes but is not limited to ADR, as you can see at http://leaps.uoregon.edu/content/what-pps.   The project is described on our website at http://leaps.uoregon.edu/.

We are writing to encourage legal educators to participate, especially at your school.  Here’s more information about how you can do this.

During the past two years, over 70 instructors have expressed interest in this project.  We are now launching what we call a “community organizing” effort by encouraging people to talk with colleagues at their schools about incorporating more PPS into their teaching.  The “engaging colleagues” page of our website suggests some ways you can do this — http://leaps.uoregon.edu/content/encouraging-colleagues-incorporate-practical-problem-solving-their-teaching.

We understand that colleagues may have legitimate concerns that may lead them to be reluctant to consider changing their teaching methods.  The “overcoming barriers” page on the website lists many of these concerns and possible responses to them.   See http://leaps.uoregon.edu/content/overcoming-barriers-teaching-%E2%80%9Cpractical-problem-solving%E2%80%9D.

We have recruited 50 faculty to serve on seven subject-area panels to provide individual advice for colleagues who want to incorporate PPS into their courses in those areas.  See http://leaps.uoregon.edu/content/panel-consultants.  If your colleagues teach a subject for which we have a panel of consultants listed on the website, you can refer them to the list of consultants, who would be happy to talk with them.  Some panels are developing materials that they will post on their LEAPS webpages, so you might check back to see if there are materials for particular subjects you or others are interested in.

If your school is considering general curricular changes, you can refer them to the “curriculum models” page, http://leaps.uoregon.edu/content/curriculum-models, which links to descriptions of how 17 schools have incorporated non-litigation dispute resolution into their required curriculum.  Of course, each school needs to tailor its curriculum to its individual situation, but when schools make decisions, they often like to consider how other schools do things, which they can adapt for their own circumstances.

We will present a program in April at the Legal Educators’ Colloquium of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution.  At that program, we want to describe “lessons learned” based on what colleagues have done in response to our project.  This would include both “success stories” as well as more frustrating experiences.  So, if you reach out to your colleagues, please let us know what happens.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Jill Gross, Pace Law School
Jim Hilbert, William Mitchell College of Law
John Lande, University of Missouri School of Law
Sean Nolon, Vermont Law School
Jean Sternlight, UNLV Boyd School of Law
J. Kim Wright, Cutting Edge Law