Now that I have had a day to catch my breath, I can share a few reflections about the wonderful ADR Works-in-Progress Conference that Cardozo Law School hosted this past Thursday evening through Saturday morning.  Prof. Lela Love, Director of Cardozo’s Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution, assisted by student editors of Cardozo’s Journal of Conflict Resolution, organized and coordinated presentations of papers and projects in various phases of progress on a wide variety of ADR-related topics from more than 25 ADR scholars.

First, due to limited travel budgets, this marks the first time I have been able to attend the ADR WIP conference, a conference conceptualized and founded about six years ago by co-blogger Andrea Schneider (yes, Andrea, yet another shout-out) and promoted by the ADR AALS Section.  Because the conference finally was in New York, I now know what I have been missing all these years.  In an intensive and short period of time, I absorbed the latest developments in the field, thought deeply about and responded to “baking” scholarship and generated ideas and nuances for my own work. [As an aside, those administrators who make seemingly unprincipled decisions about not funding academics to travel to more than one conference per year should take into account the value-added benefits to its faculty of attending these conferences and not putting academics in the unenviable position of having to choose which one to attend (or pay out-of-pocket).]

Second, I loved the format of the conference — or, should I say, the variety of formats. During the day and a half of presentations, the organizers used various mechanisms to permit attendees to provide feedback to presenters.  These included written feedback on postcards, circulating sheets, and post-its, as well as verbal feedback via small and large group discussion and responses to targeted questions.  By mixing up the formats, the conference organizers met the needs of a wider variety of styles of learners and teachers, kept us on our toes and thus generated more meaningful feedback to each presenter.

Finally, the themes that emerged from the conference reveal a proliferation of old and new mechanisms, overuse and underuse of ADR, problems in labeling of neutral styles, behaviors and approaches, and deep concerns among ADR scholars about the fairness of ADR mechanisms.  That being said, the group seemed energized to continue working to improve and promote ADR processes.

I look forward to next year’s WIP conference, no matter the location, and plan on attending regardless of budgetary constraints!