From FFOI Susan Yates about the latest resource from the invaluable Resolution Systems Institute (RSI): As the pandemic wears on, courts have been transitioning services online and exploring how ADR and ODR can aid their communities in new ways. Given the challenging nature of the situation, I am pleased to share a newly completed resource … Continue reading RSI’s Complete “Guide to Program Success” Now Available!
This week, there was another shooting of an unarmed Black man by police, this time in Kenosha, Wisconsin. So it’s very timely to read an article co-authored by MFOI Ava Abramowitz an article in Lawfare, Measurement Matters: The Key to Police Reform. The authors take a dispute system design approach to analyzing the problems, focusing … Continue reading Ava Abramowitz Article on Data Collection as Element in Strategy to Promote Good Police Performance
Pulitzer-Prize-winning NYT columnist Wesley Morris wrote a thoughtful essay, The Reconciliation Must Be Televised. “What is America’s next step in confronting its racism? A broadcast spectacle that could look like court, a telethon, an Oprah show — and more.” Take a look. [Click the title of this post to read the article.]
The National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution hosted a panel discussion and book launch on Wednesday, July 29. The program is entitled “Dispute System Design for the 21st Century.” The book is Dispute Systems Design: Preventing, Managing and Resolving Conflict by Lisa Blomgren Amsler, Janet K. Martinez, and Stephanie E. Smith, published by Stanford … Continue reading Dispute System Design Discussion on July 29
Several contributors to the Theory-of-Change book suggested that we should reconceptualize our field, shifting away from defining it in terms of particular dispute resolution procedures such as negotiation, mediation, and arbitration. I think that this idea makes sense, and this post suggests that we should include a decision-making lens that may be part of a … Continue reading Decision-Making as an Essential Element of Our Field
This is the second part of a three-part series on use of litigation interest and risk assessment (LIRA), growing out of a program at CPR’s annual meeting in February 2020. The first part of this series describes how to do LIRAs and includes results from a survey of participants in our program. This part describes … Continue reading Early Dispute Resolution Processes
I liked virtually all of the sessions I attended at this year’s ABA conference and I especially appreciated the Court ADR Conference keynote address, delivered by Michael Buenger, the executive vice-president and chief operating officer of the National Center for State Courts. He kindly agreed to let me post his provocative, wide-ranging talk, which I … Continue reading Michael Buenger’s Great Keynote Address at the ABA Court ADR Conference
The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law recently released a report entitled, Understanding Justice Needs: The Elephant in the Courtroom. The Institute describes the report as follows: “For the first time, we quantify and pinpoint the yearly need for fair solutions. In this report, we estimate that each year, 1 billion people face a new … Continue reading Impressive Report on Worldwide Dispute System Needs and Design
Universities generally ignored serious allegations of sexual assault until very recently. Did the Obama Administration policy go too far to correct this problem? That’s the view of Prof. Lara Bazelon, director of the criminal juvenile justice and the racial justice clinics at the University of San Francisco School of Law, who wrote a NYT op-ed, … Continue reading Designing a Fair Dispute System for Title IX Cases
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
Over the past year, we have witnessed growing evidence of the massive failures of our legal system to deal properly with a rampant system in which powerful men sexually dominate others, especially women. This post describes the nature, magnitude, and consequences of a long-term history of criminal and civil sexual offenses in the US and … Continue reading How Can We Fix Legal System Failures to Properly Handle Sexual Offenses?
Like millions of others, I got hooked on the Serial podcasts. The first season told the story of a real-life whodunit, examining the trial of a young man convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend. The second season focused on Bowe Bergdahl, a soldier who left his base in Afghanistan and was held captive by the Taliban … Continue reading Serial Podcast Examines the Criminal Justice System