I wanted to share a recent posting to the Dispute Resolution Listserve from my dear colleague Nancy Welsh describing some of the highlights from the last year at Texas A&M. It is an honor and joy for me to be a part of it. Here is Nancy’s message: Dear Colleagues, I’m very pleased to share … Continue reading What We’ve Been Up to in Texas….
Many of us over the years have worried not only about the process and fairness of mandatory arbitration, but also exactly who is doing the arbitrating. Apparently, this is a shared concern. In a filing in a New York state court, Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) argues that the lack of diversity of arbitrators available to him … Continue reading Jay-Z to the Rescue?
Arizona Attorney magazine, the Arizona Bar’s monthly magazine, contains a running column on the last page entitled My Last Word written by a guest author. The November issue’s column was written by an anonymous author with a terminal diagnosis who has been reflecting on his life as the disease has progressed. I thought the following … Continue reading Musings of a Dead Lawyer Walking
In a recent post, I described the intense stress that individual and organizational litigants often undergo as a result of litigation. The legal system attracts and magnifies stressful conflicts, which affects everyone in its ambit. In addition to litigants, this includes law students, lawyers, and legal academics. This post provides excerpts from my research summarizing … Continue reading Legal Stress
From AALS ADR Chair Ellen Deason… The Association of American Law Schools (AALS) has announced its selection of the ADR Section as its Section of the Year. It is the featured section in the most recent AALS newsletter. The award recognizes excellence in member support and activities that promote AALS core values such as facilitating … Continue reading Association of American Law Schools Honors Alternative Dispute Resolution Section as “Section of the Year”
The NY Times has an interactive piece to help us all have difficult conversations about politics over our holiday tables. Read Here The piece gives you multiple choice options of how to respond to your angry Uncle Bot in a political conversation. The first choice is choosing whether Uncle Bot is an angry liberal or … Continue reading Talking with angry relatives and friends over the holidays
“About half the practice of a decent lawyer consists in telling would-be clients that they are damned fools and should stop.” That’s what lawyer Elihu Root supposedly said a century ago. Many lawyers are frustrated with their actual clients at times and are tempted to tell them the same thing – and sometimes do. There … Continue reading Stop Being a Damned Fool
FOI Elayne Greenberg (St. John’s) has been gently reminding us of the Mangano Award given by St.John’s every other year to “honor scholars and practitioners whose empirical work furthers the advancement and understanding of the values and skills of dispute resolution.” This is a major award, and it comes with a $5,000 prize ! Applications … Continue reading 2018 Mangano Dispute Resolution Advancement Award
The New York Times published an interesting article worth reading, which riffs on Mark Zuckerberg’s statement that Facebook would develop an independent body to make decisions about acceptability of posts on its platform. He mused that the body might be like a supreme court to make final decisions reflecting global social norms. The article was … Continue reading Dispute System Design for Facebook
The Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program launched its new podcast Thanks for Listening! Here’s their description: This podcast will spotlight efforts to bridge the political divide in the U.S. through dialogue and collaborative processes, profiling the important and often courageous work of individuals and organizations who are helping citizens engage with one another on … Continue reading New Podcast: Thanks for Listening!
