The ABA recently published the second edition of Psychology for Lawyers: Understanding the Human Factors in Negotiation, Litigation, and Decision Making, by GFOIs Jen Robbennolt and Jean Sternlight. This edition includes the latest research and cites to relevant podcasts. It should be useful to lawyers and neutrals in all practice areas as well as psychologists … Continue reading New Edition of Psychology for Lawyers
That’s the title of a thoughtful op-ed in the New York Times by Viet Thanh Nguyen, a professor of English, American studies and comparative literature at the University of Southern California. Take a look. (Click the title of this post to read the article.)
Have you sat across a desk (or zoom screen) from an earnest student who is trying to figure out what to write for a paper in your course? Probably every instructor who has required students to write papers has had this experience. I certainly did. These often were interesting conversations in which I helped students … Continue reading Student Paper Topics
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
The Center on Dispute Resolution at the Quinnipiac School of Law will launch the “Dispute Resolution Works-in-Progress Consortium,” a new virtual speaker series, on Friday, Jan. 29, from 3-4:30 p.m. The audience for these virtual workshops will include not only dispute resolution law faculty and experienced dispute resolution practitioners, but also faculty and students interested … Continue reading Works-in-Progress Consortium Presentations – January 29
Imagine that you just stared into the neuralyzer in Men in Black. It wiped out all your memory of the traditional bundled of models of mediation and negotiation. You know – facilitative and evaluative mediation, interest-based and positional negotiation, etc. etc. The neuralyzer also vaporized all references to them in texts and teaching materials. You’re … Continue reading Merging Mediation Models – And Other Lessons
Everyone knows that lawyers should carefully assess their cases at the earliest appropriate time. In cases that are or might be litigated, lawyers often focus primarily or exclusively on estimating the expected court outcome (aka the BATNA value). The LIRA book provides guidance for more thorough and systematic case assessments, including values for tangible costs … Continue reading LIRA Videos Out the Wazoo!!
From FFOI Debra Berman: As you begin to prepare for the spring semester, please consider incorporating our Inter-School Negotiation Practicum. Over the last year, more than 1,000 students from 31 schools have participated and we are gearing up to do it again this spring. Please note that this is not a “competition.” Rather, it is … Continue reading Inter-School Negotiation Practicum for the Spring
GFOI Peter Phillips, the director of New York Law School’s ADR Skills Program, is a terrific interviewer and he is continuing the series of lunch time conversations with leading figures in our field. Here’s an announcement of the next series of interviews. We are pleased to announce the fourth series of this popular event. Every … Continue reading New York Law School Wednesday Conversations
The good folks at the Association for Conflict Resolution of Greater New York and CUNY Dispute Resolution Center at John Jay College invited me to give a talk as part of their monthly breakfast series. Last week, I gave a presentation, Helping Parties Make Decisions About What’s Really Important, which synthesizes ideas I have been … Continue reading Concepts That Can Help Practitioners Help Parties Make Decisions in Disputes
Deborah Jones Merritt, co-author of the report, Building a Better Bar: The Twelve Building Blocks of Minimum Competence, wrote a post, Could We Create a New Bar Exam? She writes: Neither states nor the National Conference of Bar Examiners (NCBE) have ever validated the current exams; that means we have no evidence that the skills … Continue reading Building a Better Bar Study Suggests Need to Restructure Bar Exams