Early coal mines didn’t have good ventilation, and miners were at risk from dangerous gases in the mines. So miners would bring canaries into the mines because they were sensitive to the gases and provided a warning of danger. The canaries would sing until they died from the gases. When they stopped singing, miners knew … Continue reading Canaries in the Litigation Coal Mine
Law school teaches students that law is a seamless web of rules emanating from authorities like statutes and cases which they must memorize and finely parse in hypothetical cases. In real life, practitioners generally think of law in terms of Oliver Wendell Holmes’s famous definition: “prophecies of what the courts will do in fact.” Of … Continue reading The Role of Law in Legal Disputes
People often say that dispute resolution processes aren’t “one size fits all.” When practitioners are asked to opine about hypothetical problems, they often say “it depends” and they make “case by case” decisions. They are telling the truth. Lawyers make complex decisions as negotiators, litigation advocates, and mediators based on a lot of factors, so … Continue reading Teaching Students to Think Like Practitioners
The ABA Section of Dispute Resolution published three books this year that you, your colleagues, and your students might be interested in. Mediating Legal Disputes: Effective Techniques to Resolve Cases, Second Edition, by Dwight Golann. Psychology for Lawyers: Understanding the Human Factors in Negotiation, Litigation, and Decision Making, Second Edition, by Jennifer K. Robbennolt and … Continue reading Three New ABA Books Hot Off the Press!
I forgot to include two things in my list of readings and resources you might want to think about as you plan for the coming academic year. The Theory-of-Change Book, which can be downloaded for free, contains 63 bite-size think pieces, averaging less than 4 pages each, written by 59 contributors in the following sections: … Continue reading Two More Things
As an annual tradition, this is a reminder of some of my favorite things you might use in your courses as you gear up for next academic year. Here’s a link to the latest and greatest version of the “resource share” compiled by Sharon Press and Noam Ebner. Here’s a post suggesting how you can … Continue reading Readings and Resources for Teaching
Like it or not, facilitative and evaluative mediation are part of the social reality of our field. Despite the fact that these models are misleading and provide counterproductive concepts to guide mediators’ behaviors and set parties’ expectations, they are inescapable. They are standard elements in texts, courses, trainings, and general discourse in our field. They … Continue reading Reconciling Allegedly Alternative Mediation Models by Using DIY Models
My colleague, Ilhyung Lee, the director of Missouri’s Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution, announced the initiation of an annual writing competition, co-sponsored by the National Academy of Arbitrators (NAA). With a generous grant from the NAA Research and Education Foundation, this initiative encourages research and scholarship in the labor and employment field. Beginning … Continue reading Journal of Dispute Resolution Writing Competition – August 15 Deadline
This was the question I had to answer when planning a lecture. I was a speaker in a course offered by the Universidad Monteavila in Caracas, Venezuela. My wonderful colleague, Rafael Gely, organized this collaboration with Missouri’s DR Center to provide a series of speakers, including me. My Venezuelan colleague told me that I could … Continue reading If You Had Only One Hour to Describe ADR, What Would You Say?
From Sharon Press and Noam Ebner: Greetings everyone! We hope that the end of the term is wrapping up well for all. We are pleased to share with you the 2021 Legal Educators’ Resource Share and Appendices which are attached to this message. As a reminder, the Resource Share is the compilation of resources and … Continue reading 2021 Resource Share Materials
Saturday, May 1 is Law Day and ABA Publishing is celebrating this special day by offering a promotion of 30% off on all books and e-books. The discount code for this sale is LAWDAY2021. Here’s the link to the books of the Section of Dispute Resolution. [Click the title of this post to see the … Continue reading ABA Book Sale – One Day Only – Sat., May 1
From Daniel Rainey by way of Amy Schmitz: The next deadline for submission to the International Journal of Online Dispute Resolution is September 7, 2021, for Volume 8, Issue 2. For that issue I would like to solicit essays by students in dispute resolution programs, law schools, and any other academic discipline where the use … Continue reading Call for Student Essays About ODR