Category Archives: General

Pledge to Reduce Academic Marketing Waste

  In honor of International Day of Climate Action (October 24), a group of law professors have announced the Pledge to Reduce Academic Marketing Waste, which seeks to address the routine and indiscriminate use of paper-based flyers, newsletters, offprints and postcards by law professors and law schools.  Most of this material is discarded without ever being read.  However, law … Continue reading Pledge to Reduce Academic Marketing Waste

President Trump’s Negotiation Skills (or Lack Thereof) – Part 6

Perceptive readers recall my series of posts about President Trump’s negotiation skills.  (Here are links to Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.) This part provides an overview of Mr. Trump’s negotiation failures whereas the prior parts focused on particular negotiations.  It summarizes a Washington Post column by liberal columnist Paul Waldman.  I think that … Continue reading President Trump’s Negotiation Skills (or Lack Thereof) – Part 6

Theory of Change Symposium – Part 2

This second part in the Theory of Change symposium includes three pieces about legal education and two pieces about dispute resolution practice. Rebekah Gordon suggests ways that law schools can engage students’ interest in ADR.  Debra Berman argues that law schools should provide more realistic instruction about ADR by increasingly focusing on mediation advocacy and … Continue reading Theory of Change Symposium – Part 2

History of a Young Female Law Professor

The Washington Post published an account of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s career as a law professor, Elizabeth Warren Faced Sexism, Shed a Husband and Found Her Voice Teaching Law in Houston, which you might find interesting regardless of your views about her politics. The article described her academic career starting in the late 1970s.  She faced … Continue reading History of a Young Female Law Professor

AALS Balance in Legal Education Section – Nominations for Exec. Committee Bd. Member

Forwarding in case anyone is interested. ————– The Nominating Committee for the AALS Balance in Legal Education Section is requesting nominations to serve as Executive Committee Board Member beginning January 1, 2020. We’d love to have your nomination!  The Balance in Legal Education Section seeks to make law school a more humane experience and to better prepare law students to … Continue reading AALS Balance in Legal Education Section – Nominations for Exec. Committee Bd. Member

I’m sorry..there is nothing that could justify what happened on Saturday morning, nothing”

Those words are part of the apology by the Mayor of Fort Worth, Betsey Price, for the police officer killing of Atatiana Jefferson in her home in Fort Worth on Saturday, October 12th. It was followed up by an unconditional apology by the Interim Police Chief, Ed Karus. To watch the full apology see here  … Continue reading I’m sorry..there is nothing that could justify what happened on Saturday morning, nothing”

Call for Proposals

Any Star Wars fans out there? At the recent AALS ADR WIP conference, Noam Ebner (Creighton) and I unveiled our new project — an edited collection of essays tentatively titled Star Wars and Conflict Resolution. We are in the call for proposals stage, seeking 300-word proposals for short chapters (4000-5000 words). We plan to build … Continue reading Call for Proposals

Mandatory Minimums and Plea Bargaining

Scott Hechinger, attorney and policy director for the Brooklyn Defender Services, has a fascinating op-ed in today’s New York Times, calling for the end of mandatory minimums. He argues that one of the problems with mandatory minimums is that they make police misconduct more difficult to manage. From the perspective of negotiation, mandatory minimums represent … Continue reading Mandatory Minimums and Plea Bargaining

Theory of Change Symposium – Part 1

A combination of several things prompted me to organize this Theory of Change Symposium.  In January, noting a combination of indicators, I wrote this post worrying about the future of ADR in legal education.  Last summer’s “Past-and-Future” conference inspired me to think about what our community might do to counteract some of the troubling trends. … Continue reading Theory of Change Symposium – Part 1