Dispute Resolution and Arbitration Commons^™

Designing Interdisciplinary, Early Intervention Dispute Resolution Tools To Decrease Evictions And Increase Housing Stability, Christine N. Cimini

Articles

This Article provides a unique glimpse into the development of an early-intervention, pre-court, interdisciplinary dispute resolution project intended to decrease evictions and increase housing stability for recipients of subsidized housing in Seattle. With a grant from the Seattle Housing Authority (SHA), a coalition of non-profit organizations had the rare opportunity to design a dispute resolution system into existence. A dispute system design team was formed and began by examining the interconnected problems of housing instability, eviction, and houselessness. Despite thorough research on dispute system design and extensive meetings with stakeholders, the deign team encountered numerous challenges. This Article identifies the …

The Importance Of Ethics In The Practice Of Mediation, Dorcas Quek Anderson

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

What is the predominant function of ethics for the mediation profession in Singapore? Do ethical principles assume greater significance in light of increasing institutionalisation of mediation programmes in Singapore? What can mediators, mediation advocates and mediation institutions do to ensure consistent adherence to ethical standards? These and other related issues were discussed in a webinar organised by the Singapore Academy of Law in May 2021 featuring Lim Tat, Chuan Wee Meng and this author as panellists, together with See Chern Yang as moderator. This article highlights the notable discussion points of the webinar, including the significance of mediation ethics, common …

Adr And Access To Justice: Current Perspectives, Rory Van Loo, Ellen E. Deason, Michael Z. Green, Donna Shestowsky, Ellen Waldman

Faculty Scholarship

Access to justice is a broad topic, and we cannot cover everything. You will notice a few major omissions. Most notably, we are not going to emphasize consumer pre-dispute arbitration agreements. This is not because they are not important, but because much has been written and said on this topic, and it could easily swallow the whole discussion. Also, we are probably not going to say very much about restorative justice, and I am sure you will notice some other holes. We invite you to raise missing issues in your comments.

Let me start with a few opening remarks. We …

The Ethical Practice Of Human-Centered Civil Justice Design, Victor D. Quintanilla, Haley Hinkle

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Over the past two decades, legal professionals have increasingly engaged in a new form of professional activity: civil justice design. In the past, legal professionals handled cases and transactions for clients or served as neutrals, including mediators and arbitrators, who helped to resolve disputes between parties. Today, legal professionals increasingly play a principal design role in creating systems that resolve streams of conflicts, disputes, and grievances between parties. Lawyers regularly now create internal grievance procedures, procedures for companies to resolve disputes with customers, and court-annexed alternative dispute resolution systems. The emergence of this new role raises difficult questions about the …

Mediation, Legal Clinic Program

Course Descriptions and Information

Students will learn and develop skills crucial to the role of mediators and legal professionals. By focusing and implementing mediation methodologies, students will learn skills of active listening and communications; conflict, issue and interests spotting, information gathering and negotiations techniques; problem-solving strategies and approaches; and effective mediation settlement agreement drafting.

Musings On Mediation, Kleenex, And (Smudged) White Hats, Nancy A. Welsh

Faculty Scholarship

This Essay speculates on the global future of mediation. It anticipates that mediation’s popularity will continue to grow both in the U.S. and abroad particularly as courts continue to encourage and institutionalize the process. Meanwhile, the Essay acknowledges the existence and continuing development of a relatively small cadre of elite lawyers and retired judges who serve as private mediators in large, complex matters.

The Essay also raises concerns, though, regarding the current lack of clarity in the goals and procedural characteristics that define mediation. The Essay asserts that such lack of clarity invites abuse of the mediation privilege and exclusionary …

Integrating "Alternative" Dispute Resolution Into Bankruptcy: As Simple (And Pure) As Motherhood And Apple Pie?, Nancy A. Welsh

Faculty Scholarship

Today, there can be little doubt that “alternative” dispute resolution is anything but alternative. Nonetheless, many judges, lawyers (and law students) do not truly understand the dispute resolution processes that are available and how they should be used. In the shadow of the current economic crisis, this lack of knowledge is likely to have negative consequences, particularly in those areas of practice such as bankruptcy and foreclosure in which clients, lawyers, regulators, and courts work under pressure, often with inadequate time and financial resources to permit careful analysis of procedural options. Potential negative effects can include: (1) impairment of a …

Mediating Multiculturally: Culture And The Ethical Mediator, Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Harold I. Abramson

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This commentary on mediating multiculturally in a chapter of Mediation Ethics (edited by Ellen Waldman) suggests there are times when mediators should not mediate, because of their own ethical commitments. Commenting on a hypothetical divorce scenario (of Ziba, a 17 year old from her 44 year old husband, with two children aged 3 and 2, where the parties claim to want Shari’a principles to apply), the author (Carrie Menkel-Meadow) suggests that she would not mediate a case which might violate formal laws (American marriage and divorce laws) or infringe on rights that one of the parties might not be fully …

Mapping The World: Facts And Meaning In Adjudication And Mediation, Robert Rubinson

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores what is and what is not in adjudication and mediation, thus illuminating the profound differences between these two processes. The Article does this work in four parts. First, it offers an analysis of cognitive mapmaking and its inevitability in constructing meaning. It then explores how adjudication defines meaning in a particular way. This Article then conducts a comparable analysis of mediation. Finally, it focuses on the bridging function attorneys play between the worlds of mediation and adjudication.

Adr Ethics, Scott R. Peppet

Publications

No abstract provided.

Contractarian Economics And Mediation Ethics: The Case For Customizing Neutrality Through Contingent Fee Mediation, Scott R. Peppet

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Lawyer As Consensus Builder: Ethics For A New Practice, Carrie Menkel-Meadow

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In this Article, I explore the roles of lawyers in alternative dispute resolution ("ADR"), including traditional roles in arbitration and "new" roles in mediation and facilitation. I also discuss how conventional ethics rules for lawyers fail to provide guidance and "best practices" for lawyers who serve in these new roles. State legislatures and professional associations, such as the American Arbitration Association ("AAA"), the Center for Public Resources Institute for Dispute Resolution ("CPR"), and the Association of Conflict Resolution, have adopted ethical codes for mediators and arbitrators. Select professional associations are also developing "best practice" guides for the provision of ADR …

Informed Consent In Mediation: A Guiding Principle For Truly Educated Decisionmaking , Jacqueline Nolan-Haley

Faculty Scholarship

Informed consent has a central role to play in mediation. Without it, mediation's promises of autonomy and self-determination are empty. This Article has given the theoretical and policy justifications for a reform of mediation practice that honors the principle of informed consent. I have argued for a contextualized approach that takes into account mediation's location, the voluntariness of the parties' consent, and their representational status. This kind of analysis will lead to a more informed practice of mediation decisionmaking than exists currently and provide a perspective that can more prudently guide a mediator's conduct. The proposed approach promotes greater fairness …

Lawyers, Clients, And Mediation , Jacqueline Nolan-Haley

Faculty Scholarship

That the growth of mediation practice is changing the practice of law is obvious. The inability of many lawyers to understand the conceptual differences between adversarial lawyering and mediation practice strongly suggests the need to develop a theory of "good" representational mediation practice that takes into account competing client interests. On the one hand, lawyers must encourage client voice and participation. At the same time, however, the demands of professionalism require that lawyers guide their clients toward responsible decisionmaking. Representational lawyering in mediation may involve a number of distinct and traditional lawyering functions-- client counseling, negotiation, evaluation and advocacy. In …