Law Commons^™

Why Mediators Should Be Regulated, Art Hinshaw

Art Hinshaw

In the United States consumers engage mediators on a caveat emptor basis. The regulatory scheme for mediators is a patchwork of mediation referral organizations which allows unscrupulous mediators to exploit consumers with little to no recourse. One egregious example is that of Gary J. Karpin, a disbarred lawyer turned divorce mediator, who used the mediation process to con forty people into giving him approximately $250,000 before taking up residence in prison. In an age when everyone from doctors to cosmetologists is subject to occupational regulation, why are mediators virtually unregulated? Mediators have long been divided on the question of regulation. …

Regulating Mediators, Art Hinshaw

Art Hinshaw

Currently consumers engage mediators on a caveat emptor basis. The regulatory scheme for mediators is, at best, a disjointed patchwork of organizations that make mediation referrals which allows unscrupulous mediators to exploit consumers and hide in the system’s holes. One egregious example of abuse comes from Gary J. Karpin, a disbarred lawyer turned divorce mediator, who is believed to have used the mediation process to con hundreds of people into giving him an estimated $1 million before taking up residence in prison. His con was so successful in part because there was no natural place for his victims to turn …

Negotiating Federalism And The Structural Constitution: Navigating The Separation Of Powers Both Vertically And Horizontally (A Response To Aziz Huq), Erin Ryan

Erin Ryan

This essay explores the emerging literature on the negotiation of structural constitutional governance, to which Professor Aziz Huq has made an important contribution in The Negotiated Structural Constitution, 114 Colum. L. Rev. 1595 (2014). In the piece, Professor Huq reviews the negotiation of constitutional entitlements and challenges the conventional wisdom about the limits of political bargaining as a means of allocating authority among the three branches of government. He argues that constitutional ambiguities in the horizontal allocation of power are sometimes best resolved through legislative-executive negotiation, just as uncertain grants of constitutional authority are already negotiated between state and federal …

Preserving Negotiation Whilst Promoting Global Order: Should We Bargain With Salt-Water Devils?, Lucas Bento

Lucas Bento

This Article utilizes theories of negotiation to assess whether negotiating with pirates is sound policy, and argues for a solution that maximizes the interests of all stakeholders without compromising important policy-based considerations.

International Environmental Law As An Art And A Craft, Jae-Hyup Lee

Jae-Hyup Lee

This is a review article about Professor Daniel Bodansky's "The Art and Craft of International Environmental Law." The book provides an accessible, yet comprehensive, overview of international environmental law, a field that has undergone rapid development and has become one of the most important issues of our time. Although there are many treatises and casebooks on this subject, this single source stands out because of its thematic and pragmatic approaches to the problem. Author's characterization of international environmental law as an "art" and a "craft" quite convincing and every reader will enjoy reading this excellent book.

Lessons From Teaching Students To Negotiate Like A Lawyer, John Lande

John Lande

The legal education system is in a major crisis now, in part because law schools do not prepare students adequately to practice law. Law schools should do a better job of teaching negotiation, in particular, because it is a significant part of the work of virtually every practicing lawyer. This includes lawyers who handle civil and criminal matters and lawyers who do litigation as well as those who do transactional work. Negotiation is especially important because most litigated cases are settled and virtually all unstandardized transactions are negotiated. Most law school negotiation courses rely primarily or exclusively on simulations in …

The Road To Doha Through Seoul: The Diplomatic And Legal Implications Of The Pre-Cop 18 Ministerial Meeting, Jae-Hyup Lee, John Leitner, Minjung Chung

Jae-Hyup Lee

International climate change negotiations reached a critical crossroads in 2012. Facing the conclusion of the Kyoto Protocol and with no successor regime yet negotiated, nations have been compelled to re-engage in substantive and far-ranging discussions. The nation of Korea has distinguished itself in this process, in particular by hosting the final ministerial meeting prior to this year’s Conference of the Parties in Doha, Qatar. The Korean government’s willingness to lead has also been evidenced by Korea’s founding of the Global Green Growth Institute, a leading international organization in the area of environmentally responsible economic development, and its successful bid to …

The Psychology Of Mediation, Richard Wolman

richard wolman

This article provides an overview and summary of some well-understood psychological phenomena as they apply to mediation. Our goal is to survey territory that may be familiar to psychologists but perhaps less to mediators who do not have professional training in social psychology or one of the mental health disciplines.

The Alternative Forms Of Dispute Settlement And The Essential Difference Between These And Arbitration, Michael Diathesopoulos

Michael Diathesopoulos

The paper examines the characteristics of some common alternative forms of dispute settlement and their key differences from arbitration regarding their nature and scope. Its purpose is to explore each mechanism's suitability for specific types of disputes.

Ethics In Intellectual Property Negotiations: Issues And Illustrations, Lisa A. Dolak

Lisa A Dolak

Negotiating – formally or informally – is a characteristic aspect of law practice. The requisite skills are acquired “on the job” and, for some, via the formal study of negotiation processes and attributes. The negotiator has much to consider, including the client’s goals and interests, likely litigation outcomes should negotiations fail or any ultimate agreement be breached, and what the counterparty is likely seeking to accomplish.

The challenges include negotiating within the limits imposed by the ethics rules. This paper identifies key authorities relevant to negotiation ethics and illustrates their operation in the context of hypotheticals based on intellectual property …

The Revolution In Family Law Dispute Resolution, John Lande

John Lande

In the past fifty years, the revolution in American family law led to a revolution in family law dispute resolution. Virtually every aspect of divorce law has been transformed since the Mad Men era, including grounds for divorce, characterization of marital property, child custody presumptions, and alimony and child support rules. Marriage is not assumed to be a lifelong commitment. Fault generally is not legally relevant. Gender equality is a fundamental principle. In this period, family courts struggled with an increased volume of cases and ambiguous rules. They found that the tools of litigation were poorly suited to handle most …

Teaching Students To Negotiate Like A Lawyer, John Lande

John Lande

Teaching students to negotiate effectively is central to their thinking, acting, and being like good lawyers. Virtually all lawyers spend much of their time negotiating, whether they deal with disputes or transactions. So law school negotiation courses should provide the most realistic possible portrayal of legal negotiation. This essay is intended to help instructors plan and teach negotiation courses, recognizing that every course should be tailored to fit the interests, capabilities, resources, and constraints of the instructors and students. This essay argues that many lawyers engage in “ordinary legal negotiation” (OLN), which is distinct from “romantic” theories of positional and …

Formalizing Legal Reputation Markets, Jamison M. Davies

Jamison M. Davies

Prior research indicates that having a reputation for cooperative problem solving in a negotiation (an "integrative" approach) leads to better substantive outcomes for both negotiating parties. This paper models a market for negotiation reputations and proposes some market-oriented solutions that would create incentives for attorneys to cultivate better negotiation reputations and thus produce better outcomes for clients.

Getting Good Results For Clients By Building Good Working Relationships With "Opposing Counsel", John Lande

John Lande

Lawyers’ relationships with their “opposing counsel” make a big difference in how well they handle their cases. “Opposing counsel” often do oppose each other, sometimes quite vigorously, though they also regularly cooperate with each other. In the normal course of litigation, lawyers need to cooperate on many procedural matters. In some cases, they also cooperate to achieve their respective clients’ substantive interests. If the lawyers have a bad relationship, the case is likely to be miserable for everyone involved. If they have a good relationship, they are more likely to agree on procedural matters, exchange information informally, take reasonable negotiation …

U.S.-China Bilateral Investment Treaty Negotiations, Q Kong

q kong

The growing importance of foreign direct investment (FDI) to U.S.-China relations was highlighted when the U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) in 2008 mandated the negotiations of a bilateral investment treaty (BIT). Intended to further liberalizing investment policies of either country, the U.S.-China BIT-to-be came at a time of soaring economic tensions between the two economic giants amid global financial crisis. In contrast to the assertive stance of the United States to base the negotiation on the U.S. model BIT, which is most sophisticated and signifies the highest standard for market access and investment protection, the current Chinese investment regime, which …

Failures Of Cosean Irrelevance, Nicholas L. Georgakopoulos

Nicholas L Georgakopoulos

An exploration of the Coase theorem reveals more sources of failures than transaction costs, and that transaction costs are misunderstood. After a discussion of Coasean irrelevance, this essay examines a sequence of failures of irrelevance. (a) The shifting nature of transaction costs suggests that they may hide innovation incentives. (b) Negotiation holdouts may prevent agreements. (c) Systematic errors may bias incentives. (d) Risk-aversion may distort action but also enable innovation. (e) Distributional effects may argue for unstable allocations.

Explaining Adversarial Boilerplate Language In The Battle Of The Forms: Are Consequential Damages In The U.C.C. Gap Fillers A Penalty Default Rule?, Ryan D. Griffee

Ryan D Griffee

In this article, game theory is applied to the battle of the forms and related scenarios to explain Daniel Keating’s observations, reported in the article "Exploring the Battle of the Forms in Action," 98 MICH. L. REV. 2678 (2000). The first of the two major findings in the paper is that drafters of boilerplate language should use adversarial, U.C.C. § 2-207(1) proviso-conforming language to ensure that clients receive terms that are no worse than the default U.C.C. gap fillers. This is done first by explaining how courts apply U.C.C. § 2-207 to the battle of the forms, and then applying …

The Potential Contribution Of Adr To An Integrated Curriculum: Preparing Law Students For Real World Lawyering, John Lande, Jean R. Sternlight

John Lande

This Article briefly reviews the long history of critiques of legal education that highlight the failure to adequately prepare students for what they will and should do as attorneys. It takes a sober look at the hurdles reformers face when trying to make significant curricular changes. Recognizing these substantial barriers, it proposes a modest and feasible menu of reforms that interested faculty and law schools can achieve without investing substantial additional resources. The proposals are not intended as a comprehensive package to be implemented on an all-or-nothing basis but as a set of options to be selected by individual faculty …

Collaborative Lawyers’ Duties To Screen The Appropriateness Of Collaborative Law And Obtain Clients’ Informed Consent To Use Collaborative Law, John Lande, Forrest S. Mosten

John Lande

Collaborative Law (CL) is an innovative dispute resolution process that offers significant benefits but also poses significant non-obvious risks. In CL, the lawyers and clients sign a “participation agreement” promising to use an interest-based approach to negotiation and fully disclose all relevant information. A key element of CL is the “disqualification agreement,” which provides that both CL lawyers would be disqualified from representing the clients if the case is litigated. CL is designed to encourage parties to stay in the process which can be good, though sometimes parties feel stuck there, having invested thousands of dollars and at risk of …

Doing The Right Thing: An Empirical Study Of Attorney Negotiation Ethics, Art Hinshaw, Jess K. Alberts

Art Hinshaw

The code of ethical conduct for lawyers -- the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct (the “Model Rules”) -- legitimizes a certain amount of dissembling and misdirection in the negotiation realm, only prohibiting legal negotiators from making fraudulent misrepresentations about material matters. To determine if attorneys are meeting this low standard, the authors surveyed practicing lawyers and asked them if they would agree to engage in a fraudulent pre-litigation settlement scheme if a client requested them to do so. Nearly one-third of the respondents indicated they would agree to the client’s overtures, and only half indicated that they …

What Law Schools Should Teach Future Transactional Lawyers: Perspectives From Practice, Michael A. Woronoff

Michael A Woronoff

Since at least the 1980’s, law schools have been chided for doing a poor job at teaching skills. This criticism has been accompanied by pressure to increase their emphasis on skills training. The pressure increased with the publication of the McCrate Report in 1992, and then again with the publication of the Carnegie Report in 2007. This article is based on my remarks given on June 10 at the 2009 mid-year meeting of the AALS Conference on Business Associations. In those remarks, I respond to the questions “Are law schools teaching students adequate transactional skills?” and “From the standpoint of …

How A Mediation Clinic Can Inform The Curriculum, Dr Leonardo J. Raznovich, Ben Waters

Dr Leonardo J Raznovich

There are many different ways and settings in which the curriculum can be developed to provide clinical legal education to students at university level within the UK. With the assistance of HEFCE research informed teaching funding and after nearly a year of preparatory research, two members of the Legal Studies team, in department of Crime and Policing at Canterbury Christ Church University (CCCU) in England set up a mediation clinic as a fundamental element of the development of a Qualifying Law Degree. The clinic at Canterbury Christ Church University is unique, not least for the fact that it is the …

Law Enforcement And Intelligence Gathering In Muslim And Immigrant Communities After 9/11, David A. Harris

David A Harris

LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE GATHERING IN MUSLIM AND IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES AFTER 9/11 DAVID A. HARRIS ABSTRACT Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, law enforcement agencies have actively sought partnerships with Muslim communities in the U.S. Consistent with community-based policing, these partnerships are designed to persuade members of these communities to share information about possible extremist activity. These cooperative efforts have borne fruit, resulting in important anti-terrorism prosecutions. But during the past several years, law enforcement has begun to use another tactic simultaneously: the FBI and some police departments have placed informants in mosques and other religious institutions to gather …

Fighting With Faith: The Role Of Religion In Dealing With Modern Conflict, Sean P. Mcdonnell

Sean P. McDonnell

Though current modes of cultural and ethnic asymmetrical conflict may seem novel, they universally draw on something far older and far more ingrained in man’s ancient roots: his faith in and relationship with the divine. Perhaps uniquely among cultural factors, religion is a single consistent issue latent in almost all contemporary intractable conflicts. If properly deployed, the symbols, language, and meanings of religious traditions may prove as powerful in resolving conflict as they have been in fueling it. How can those interested in healing these wide cultural schisms employ the power of religion in a restorative resolution process? This essay …

Will Benefits Of Communicating Face-To-Face Drive Widespread Adoption Of Telepresence For Use In Commercial Negotiation?, Brian D. Mckenzie

Brian D. McKenzie

People are famously egocentric, short-sighted, risk-averse, competitive, and insecure. All of these human characteristics are in play during a face-to-face negotiation, where a negotiator’s ability to control his own characteristics while observing those of his opponent can have a significant impact on the outcome of the negotiation. While highly effective, face-to-face negotiation suffers from the expense of drawing geographically disparate parties into close physical proximity. As a result, alternatives for business have been developed, such as telephone, and email, but this paper will demonstrate how each falls short of the “personal experience” of face-to-face negotiation, and how such a deficiency …

Federalism At The Cathedral: Property Rules, Liability Rules, And Inalienability Rules In Tenth Amendment Infrastructure, Erin Ryan

Erin Ryan

As climate change, war in the Middle East, and the price of oil focus American determination to move beyond fossil fuels, nuclear power has resurfaced as a possible alternative. But energy reform efforts may be stalled by an unlikely policy deadlock stemming from a structural technicality in an aging Supreme Court decision: New York v. United States, which set forth the Tenth Amendment anti-commandeering rule and ushered in the New Federalism era in 1992. This dry technicality also poses ongoing regulatory obstacles in such critical interjurisdictional contexts as stormwater management, climate regulation, and disaster response. Such is the enormous power …

Why Arbitrate? The Questionable Quest For Efficiency In Hallstreet Street Associates, Llc V. Mattel, Inc., 550 U.S. __ (2008), David K. Kessler

David K Kessler

The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) makes arbitration agreements between private parties legally enforceable. The policy favoring arbitration underlying the FAA has been justified as serving two ends: it protects freedom of contract, and it creates an efficient alternative dispute resolution system. Previous decisions by the Court have indicated a belief that, when those two goals come into conflict, the result that preserves freedom of contract should prevail. In Hallstreet Associates, L.L.C. v. Mattel, Inc., however, a recent case involving the Federal Arbitration Act, the Court's decision preserved perceived efficiency at the expense of freedom of contract. The Court held that …

Why Arbitrate? The Questionable Quest For Efficiency In Hallstreet Street Associates, Llc V. Mattel, Inc., David K. Kessler

David K Kessler

The Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) makes arbitration agreements between private parties legally enforceable. The policy favoring arbitration underlying the FAA has been justified as serving two ends: it protects freedom of contract, and it creates an efficient alternative dispute resolution system. Previous decisions by the Court have indicated a belief that, when those two goals come into conflict, the result that preserves freedom of contract should prevail. In Hallstreet Associates, L.L.C. v. Mattel, Inc., however, a recent case involving the Federal Arbitration Act, the Court’s decision preserved perceived efficiency at the expense of freedom of contract. The Court held that …

Bundles Of Hope: Putting Aspirations In Order, Marc A. Morgan

Marc A. Morgan

The primary purpose of this paper is to discuss cardinal utility theories of how aspiration affects negotiation and to propose an alternative ordinal utility theory of how aspiration affects negotiation. In the cardinal utility theories, used by some legal scholars, aspiration in negotiation is a utility maximizing point after which negotiators become increasingly loss averse. While in the ordinal utility theory this paper proposes, aspiration in negotiation is a goal that maximizes utility subject to constraints and subjective preferences.

Compelling Mediation In The Context Of Med-Arb Agreements, Sean-Patrick Wilson, David J. Mclean

Sean-Patrick Wilson

The recent case of Advanced Bodycare v. Thione, 07-12309, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 8584 (11th Cir. Apr. 21, 2008) invited the Eleventh Circuit to explore which types of ADR are considered “arbitration” for purpose of the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. § 1 (“FAA”). According to the Eleventh Circuit, an agreement to mediate, as well as an agreement to either mediate or arbitrate, falls outside of the FAA’s scope, making the FAA’s remedies unavailing to parties wishing to use its provisions to stay litigation or to compel a single agreement which requires the parties to either mediate or arbitrate. The …