The ABA Dispute Resolution Section, AAA and ACR are exploring potential updates to the Model Standards of Conduct for Mediators (“Model Standards”) (2005). They invite your input to help identify areas that may need clarification, modernization, or further guidance based on today’s mediation practices. Your responses will remain confidential and will directly inform the review … Continue reading Model Standards of Conduct for Mediators (update – survey) →

In the space of two weeks, the field of dispute resolution lost Robert Baruch Bush, the prophet of the transformative model of mediation, and the world lost Jürgen Habermas, the philosopher whose theory of communication and rationality provides a normative justification for much of dispute resolution—even if few American legal scholars in this field engage … Continue reading On Habermas & Bush: from Andrew Mamo →

I learned of Jurgen Habermas’s death at 96 while I was teaching my Negotiation intensive course and my students were engaged in a complex multi-party consensus – building exercise. As we debriefed, I asked if they had heard of Habermas and all said No, despite the fact that many were Political Science majors in college. … Continue reading On Habermas: from Carrie Menkel-Meadow →

This morning, I read the here-linked Guardian story reporting that Jurgen Habermas has died. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/15/jurgen-habermas-obituary I know no credible scholars in our field who would accuse Habermas of being easy to read. And I am not the right person to write a thorough, or maybe even thoughtful, examination of the ADR-specific impacts of Habermas’s notions … Continue reading Jurgen Habermas (1929-2026) →

… I found this image on social media earlier today. And I think it can fairly substitute for pretty much an entire lecture I was going to give in a couple weeks. I will likely lecture a bit, anyway. But my students, having seen this image, will quite reasonably not listen carefully. MM

My friend and colleague John Lande just posted a musing about law review reprints. John notes that he misses law review reprints only because he now receives no personalized notes from reprints’ authors. John did not need to rehearse the reasons for reprints’ relatively recent demise. He didn’t need to. These reasons are well understood … Continue reading A Concurring Dissent, or a Dissenting Concurrence, on Law Review Reprints →

I learned yesterday of the passing of Tom Schaub. In a blog focused primarily on law professors and dispute resolution, it may seem expansive for me to call attention to Tom (who was neither a lawyer, nor particularly interested in the sometimes-narrow constraints of “disputes” as they are commonly conceived.) Tom worked in the field, … Continue reading In Memoriam: Tom Schaub →

It’s really, really hard to assess the wisdom of a settlement from the outside. Almost every settlement represents a tradeoff of legitimate interests in a condition of uncertainty. It’s perhaps extra hard to assess settlements in the context of litigation on behalf of the public. Was a settlement for $X a major victory, a stinging … Continue reading Kamala Harris and Settlements? →

The ABA Section of Dispute Resolution has announced its 2024 recipients of the Frank Sander Innovation in ADR Award. I had the honor again of serving on the selection committee, and I was again humbled by the extraordinary range of innovative work being done in (and adjacent) to our field. One of this year’s recipients … Continue reading Frank Sander Innovation in ADR Award Recipients 2024 →

Last week, U.S. Magistrate Judge M. David Weisman, issued an order in a case pitting the state of Illinois against Monsanto and other chemical manufacturers for discharging PCBs. Illinois sought to compel disclosure of certain documents the defendants produced in conjunction with ADR proceedings that arose during nine other lawsuits spanning back to 1984. The … Continue reading If you teach ADR and CivPro, your exam writing dreams have been answered! (and you need better dreams) →