From Donna Shestowsky: Parties who used online dispute resolution (ODR) for child custody, parenting time or child support matters in Ottawa County, Michigan, were more likely to reach agreement and to rate their experience highly as those who were offered ODR but didn’t use it, a new study by UC Davis Professor of Law Donna Shestowsky … Continue reading Study of ODR in Family Cases with Positive Results
That’s the title of an article in the New York Times. It reports that “[s]ame-sex couples, on average, resolve conflict more constructively than different-sex couples, and with less animosity, studies have shown.” It cites researchers suggesting ideas that our field generally recommends including: Using humor to defuse anger Staying calm Being mindful of the other’s … Continue reading Gay Couples Can Teach Straight People a Thing or Two About Arguing
On April 1, the Stetson Law Review sponsored an excellent symposium, Is Remote Justice Still Justice? It featured FOUR (!) Indisputably bloggers (Cynthia Alkon, Sarah Cole, Jill Gross, and Andrea Schneider) as well as Erin Archerd, Deborah Eisenberg, Elayne Greenberg, Nicole lannarone, and Kelly Browe Olson. Speakers focused on dispute resolution in various contexts including … Continue reading Evolution of New Normals in Dispute Resolution
The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds, by Michael Lewis, tells the story of how Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky came together – and fell apart – in their research that radically advanced our knowledge of how people’s minds work. This is another post in my What-I’m-Reading series. Kahneman and Tversky’s … Continue reading Following the Science of Heuristics and Biases – and a Tragic Love Story
From Elayne Greenberg: About the Dispute Resolution Advancement Award Given annually through the Hugh L. Carey Center for Dispute Resolution at St. John’s Law, this $5000 Award honors scholars and practitioners whose published empirical research has furthered the advancement and understanding of the values and skills of dispute resolution. Nomination Criteria You are invited to … Continue reading Call for Nominations for 2022 Dispute Resolution Advancement Award
Peter T. Coleman, professor of psychology and education at Columbia University, an award-winning scholar and a prolific author, recently published his latest book, The Way Out: How to Overcome Toxic Polarization. He holds a joint appointment at Teachers College and The Earth Institute. In his spare time, he is the director of the Morton Deutsch … Continue reading Peter Coleman’s Outstanding Evidence-Based Work on Reducing Polarization
There’s too darn much ADR research. Too darn much if you have any hope of keeping up with it. We are blessed and cursed with an interest in a subject that deals with virtually every aspect of life and is studied in many different disciplines. So we are fortunate that Jim Coben and Donna Stienstra … Continue reading Coben & Stienstra’s Fabulous Annotated Bibliography of Empirical Research
I just wrote this post on the Kluwer Mediation Blog on this subject. It summarizes empirical research showing the huge chasm in perspectives between many lawyers and their clients. Lawyers often focus only on monetary issues in legal disputes, which drives many of their clients crazy because they are also very concerned about a wide … Continue reading Lawyers Are From Mars, Clients Are From Venus – and Mediators Can Help Communicate in Space
Jim Stark and Doug Frenkel just became scholars-in-residence with the International Academy of Mediators, following in the footsteps of Hal Abramson, Lela Love, and Dwight Golann. I have appreciated Doug and Jim’s work – actually of all the SiRs – and this post describes some of the things I appreciate about it. It also includes … Continue reading Appreciation of Doug Frenkel and Jim Stark
From TFOI Elayne Greenberg: About the Dispute Resolution Advancement Award Given annually through the Hugh L. Carey Center for Dispute Resolution at St. John’s Law, this $5000 Award honors scholars and practitioners whose published empirical research has furthered the advancement and understanding of the values and skills of dispute resolution. Nomination Criteria You are invited to … Continue reading Dispute Resolution Advancement Award Application Deadline January 21
Ohio State Professor Deborah Jones Merritt and Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System Research Director Logan Cornett just published an important report, Building a Better Bar: The Twelve Building Blocks of Minimum Competence, based on insights from 50 focus groups. They found that minimum competence consists of 12 interlocking “building blocks,” including … Continue reading Important New Report on Essential Lawyering Skills
Jeff Trueman, an experienced Maryland mediator and Pepperdine LLM candidate, wrote an excellent article about the challenges of lawyers, mediators, and insurance claims professionals in mediation. He interviewed subjects about their problems in mediation, and his study provided evidence of professionals behaving badly, very consistent with my post about BATNAs and the emotional pains of … Continue reading Jeff Trueman’s Study on Nightmares of “Positional” Tactics in Mediation