Dwight Golann just wrote a nice article about mediators’ experiences mediating on Zoom: “I Sometimes Catch Myself Looking Angry or Tired …” The Impact of Mediating by Zoom, published in CPR’s Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation. Dwight solicited mediators’ reactions on the International Academy of Mediators listserv as well as in two focus … Continue reading Dwight Golann on a Year of Zoom Mediations
From the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution: The 23rd Annual Section of Dispute Resolution Spring Conference will take place on April 14 – 17, 2021 in Los Angeles and online. The 2021 Section of Dispute Resolution Annual Spring Conference will continue our tradition of excellent and innovative educational programs along with social and networking events. … Continue reading ABA Section of Dispute Resolution Conference – April 14-17, 2021
Probably every student and instructor has had difficult challenges this year accommodating to the routines needed because of the pandemic. Many faculty have been teaching fully or partially online and will continue to do so next semester because the virus is still way out of control in the US. Although using video has some advantages, … Continue reading Asynchronous Instruction in This Year of Living Dangerously
During the summer, faculty plan their courses for the fall. This is a good time to consider including Stone Soup assignments in your courses, especially clinical and externship courses. Faculty who used Stone Soup assignments found that they and their students almost invariably were very enthusiastic, feeling that this was a valuable contribution to students’ … Continue reading Consider Cooking Up Stone Soup in the Fall – Especially in Clinical and Externship Courses
This builds on a previous post discussing problems with plans to teach in-person classes in the fall. Most of this post reproduces a listserv message from TFOI Ben Davis expressing concern about universities’ plans for the fall semester. Like Ben, I am very alarmed about universities’ plans to hold classes in person considering how the … Continue reading How Many People Will Preventably Die or Get Ill if Universities Hold Classes in Person? – Part 2
This fall, American universities will face their modern rendezvous with destiny as they make momentous decisions whether to protect large communities from death and disease. Most universities plan to conduct in-person classes and are likely to become semester-long virus incubators if they stick to those plans. The situation would be very different if all government … Continue reading How Many People Will Preventably Die or Get Ill if Universities Hold Classes in Person? – Part 1
From TFOI Kristen Blankley: COVID-19 has created additional need for legal services in many areas, including housing, consumer law, employment law, probate, family law, domestic violence advocacy, criminal law, among others. We all have substantive and process expertise in different areas, which means that we should have a great ability to fulfill our aspirational (or, … Continue reading Kristen Blankley: New Opportunities for Pro Bono in a Pandemic
Just shy of a year ago, many of us gathered at Pepperdine to appreciate the legacy of our movement and engage the future. How time flies. Since then, our world has been overtaken by a pandemic that is fundamentally altering all of our lives as well as an outpouring of rage about the history of … Continue reading If You’re Not Part of the Solution . . .
This post speculates about the future of continuing education programs (CEP) after a brief review of past CEPs. This is part of a series analyzing what the potential new normal as the current crisis recedes. The first post includes links to the others in the series. The Old Normal of Continuing Professional Education In the … Continue reading Continuing Professional Education in the New Normal
The ABA Journal recently published an article entitled Bar Exam Does Little to Ensure Attorney Competence, Say Lawyers in Diploma Privilege State, describing the experience in Wisconsin, the only state that currently has the “diploma privilege.” Under the Wisconsin rules, in-state law school graduates can become licensed without taking a bar exam. These graduates must … Continue reading The Coronavirus Crisis Provides an Opportunity to Adopt Better Systems for Licensing Lawyers than the Bar Exam
What do you have to hide? That’s an issue raised by two comments about my post, Communication, Privacy, and Community in the New Normal. One commenter asked, “What if the government or a private group knowing your real-time biometrics could save lives? Why do we hold the privacy of such data in such high regard?” … Continue reading The Importance of Privacy
This spring is an eerie season of death and life. Death is a natural and inevitable part of life. Humans and members of every other living species die all the time. What’s so spooky about the coronavirus crisis is that this deadly virus often is spread by people who are asymptomatic. So you can’t tell … Continue reading This Spring