I recently stumbled upon a useful analogy that I used in our required Lawyering course, namely that lawyers are like “conflict doctors.” For our final class, we read an excerpt of an article by Frank Sander and Stephen Goldberg with tables identifying various client goals and impediments to settlement. The article listed goals related … Continue reading Conflict Doctors
In 1998, commenting on the hot controversy about the “Rand Report’s” finding that certain mediation programs did not save time or money (measured in terms of lawyers’ work hours), Professor Craig McEwen argued that it was the wrong question to ask whether “mediation works.” Critics of the Report had argued that its methodology led to … Continue reading Some Good Questions
“Oh Boy! A fight.” That’s often what I say in class when students vigorously disagree. I like these “fights” because they usually lead to helpful discussions that clarify differing views. So when Andrea wrote her post, Puffing Sucks, I thought, “Oh Boy! A fight.” She argues that puffing is “[l]ying, through and through,” and that … Continue reading Some Puffing Sucks . . . But Developing Good Relationships Is More Likely to be Effective than a New Rule
I am one of several people on the LEAPS committee who scans certain blogs to identify people who may not be familiar with LEAPS and let them know about it. So I subscribe to the Best Practices for Legal Education blog and the blog for IAALS, the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal … Continue reading Resources about the FRCP and Legal Education
We often think of negotiation as a distinct and climactic phase of a dispute. Interactions leading up to the final settlement event are often considered merely as preparation, if that. In litigated cases, we often ignore the litigation as if it was largely irrelevant to the information available and the dynamics in negotiation. I base … Continue reading What is Negotiation?, Part 2
So said the illustrious founder of our blog – at least until good taste or something else induced her to change the title of an article to the more borrrrrring, “Teaching a New Negotiation Skills Paradigm.” (On the other hand, it you really want to rack up the ssrn downloads, use a sexy title like … Continue reading “Labels Suck”
I love teaching law students about misrepresentation in negotiation. I call this class, “lying like a lawyer.” Of course, civilians (i.e., non-lawyers) regularly fudge the facts, let’s call it. While it might be nice if there were bright-line norms of scrupulous honesty that were universally followed, that’s never gonna happen. I’m no expert … Continue reading To Puff or Not to Puff . . . (or When and How to Puff)
I know that this sounds like another one of my dumb questions. But the meaning of negotiation is surprisingly opaque. People have very different ideas about this. And the definition you choose has important practical implications. I stumbled onto this problem as I studied and taught negotiation in recent years. In an article on negotiation … Continue reading What is Negotiation?, Part 1
This is the season when a flood of promotional literature flows through the mailboxes of law professors, coincidentally right before the US News surveys arrive. So if you are one of the usual suspects, it would be quite understandable if Missouri’s contribution to this genre entitled, “The Art of Teaching Dispute Resolution,” ended up in … Continue reading ICYMI
