Law Commons^™

An Overlooked Key To Reversing Mass Incarceration: Reforming The Law To Reduce Prosecutorial Power In Plea Bargaining, Cynthia Alkon

Cynthia Alkon

The need to “do something” about mass incarceration is now widely recognized. When President Obama announced plans to reform federal criminal legislation, he focused on the need to change how we handle non-violent drug offenders and parole violators. Previously, former Attorney General Eric Holder announced policies to make federal prosecutors “smart on crime.” These changes reflect, as President Obama noted, the increasing bipartisan consensus on the need for reform and the need to reduce our incarceration rates. However, proposals about what to reform, such as President Obama’s, tend to focus on some parts of criminal sentencing and on prosecutorial behavior …

Plea Bargain Negotiations: Defining Competence Beyond Lafler And Frye, Cynthia Alkon

Cynthia Alkon

In the companion cases of Lafler v. Cooper and Missouri v. Frye the U.S. Supreme Court held that there is a right to effective assistance of counsel during plea bargaining. However, the Court defined effective assistance of counsel in only one narrow phase of plea bargaining: the client counseling phase. The Court said it would not look more broadly at the negotiation process itself as "[b]argaining is, by its nature, defined to a substantial degree by personal style.” This statement indicates that the Court does not fully understanding developments in the field of negotiation over the last thirty years. Negotiation …

What's Law Got To Do With It? Plea Bargaining Reform After Lafler And Frye, Cynthia Alkon

Cynthia Alkon

This symposium article responds to the question, what's left of the law in the wake of ADR? The article addresses this question in the context of the criminal justice system in the United States. As with civil cases, few criminal cases go to trial. Negotiated agreements through plea bargaining have been the predominate form of case resolution since at least the mid-twentieth century. Plea bargaining, as with other forms of alternative dispute resolution, is an informal process that operates largely outside the formal legal system. Plea bargains are rarely negotiated on the record in open court. Instead, they are usually …

Utility Function And Rational Choice As Support Mechanisms To Maximize Mediation And Legal Negotiation Settlement Output, Roberto Kuster

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This article provides a general negotiation background, establishing some basic definitions such as BATNA, interests, and “Shadow of Law.” Then, it works with the two-step process of utility maximization and rational choice to achieve the optimal settlement output within mediation and legal negotiation processes. Lastly, it points out methods to support the theories in ways that a lawyer could understand and apply correctly. Thus, the article offers an idea for an optimal settlement in a legal negotiation/mediation. It takes the complementary views of recognized authors, from Fisher and Ury’s "how to negotiate" manual, Raiffa's lucid explanation of applied game theory, …

Surfing To Success As A Mindful Negotiator, Leslie Larkin Cooney

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Divided Nation: Political Polarization And Dispute Resolution, Lindsey Phipps

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This article will discuss the causes and consequences of party polarization and propose that the legislative body work more collaboratively and cooperatively through direct implementation of alternative dispute resolution techniques such as negotiation and mediation in the legislative process. Part I will define political polarization, what it looks like today, its causes and its consequences. Part II will propose and explain the use of dispute resolution techniques and tactics, such as, negotiation, mediation and alternative dispute resolution to mitigate the effects of political polarization. Part III will conclude that dispute resolution techniques and tactics will mitigate the inadequacies created by …

A Soft Solution For A Hard Problem: Using Alternative Dispute Resolution In Post-Conflict Societies, James D. Mcginley

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Trending @ Rwu Law: Michael Bowden's Post: How Law School Gives Politicians A "Running Start" 09-08-2017, Michael Bowden

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Class Action Waivers In Employment Agreements: Lewis Creates A Framework For The United States Supreme Court, Meghan Gonyea

Arbitration Law Review

No abstract provided.

Newsroom: Rwu Law Welcomes New Director Of Business Law Programs And The Corporate Counsel Externship Program July 19, 2017, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

New

What Do You Know About Negotiation?, Cardozo Adr Competition Honor Society, Southeast Asian Law Students Association (Salsa)

Flyers 2016-2017

No abstract provided.

Negotiating And Mediating Brexit, Horst Eidenmüller

Pepperdine Law Review

The United Kingdom will leave the European Union. Brexit will involve many complex negotiations. This article analyses the negotiation position of the parties (UK, EU, Member States) based on a set of four key negotiation factors: agreement options, nonagreement alternatives, interests, and perceptions. A special focus here is on the effect of triggering the formal withdrawal process under the Treaty on European Union’s Article 50 on the non-agreement alternatives of the parties. The article considers the likely negotiation strategy of the UK against this background. It further discusses strategic negotiation moves already made by the parties and moves likely to …

Newroom: Yelnosky: Future Of Public Sector Union 'Dues' 01-14-2017, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Rwu First Amendment Blog: Dean Michael Yelnosky's Blog: The First Amendment And Public Sector Union "Dues" 1-9-2017, Michael J. Yelnosky

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Reclaiming Attention In The Digital Generation Negotiation, Lauren A. Newell

Law Faculty Scholarship

This chapter considers the relationship between information and communication technologies ("ICTs") and attention and the consequences of this relationship for the "Digital Generation" negotiators of the future. It proceeds in three parts. The first part explores the mechanics of attention and the importance of attention in negotiation. The second part, directed to elder generations of negotiators, aims to help these negotiators understand how ICTs affect the Digital Generation’s attentional capacity. The third part, directed to Digital Generation negotiators, offers practical suggestions for improving their focused attention.

Market Information And The Elite Law Firm, Elisabeth De Fontenay

Faculty Scholarship

As a subcategory of contract negotiations, corporate transactions present information problems that have not been fully analyzed. In particular, the literature does not address the possibility that parties may simply be unaware of value-increasing transaction terms or their outside option. Such unawareness can arise even for transactions that attract many competing parties, if the bargaining process is such that (1) the price terms are negotiated and fixed prior to the non-price terms, contrary to the standard assumption; and (2) some of the non-price terms remain private for some period of time.

A simple bargaining model shows that, when such unawareness …

Mandatory Arbitration In Consumer Finance And Investor Contracts, Michael S. Barr

Book Chapters

This chapter focuses on the use of mandatory pre-dispute arbitration clauses in a subset of consumer contracts – those involving consumer finance and investor products and services. Arbitration clauses are pervasive in financial contracts – for credit cards, bank accounts, auto loans, broker-dealer services, and many others. In the wake of the recent financial crisis, Congress enacted the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (Dodd-Frank). Dodd-Frank authorises the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to prohibit or condition the use of arbitration clauses in consumer finance and investment contracts, …

The Definition Of Negotiation: A Play In Three Acts, Noam Ebner, John Lande, David Matz, Andrea Kupfer Schneider

Journal of Dispute Resolution

This Article is based on a conversation between Andrea, Noam, and David as they drove to the airport following the Tower of Babel symposium. Then, John metaphorically joined the ride and participated in the quest to find a good definition of negotiation.

Using The Terms Integrative And Distributive Bargaining In The Classroom: Time For Change?, Rishi Batra

Journal of Dispute Resolution

The terms “integrative bargaining” and “distributive bargaining” have been with us in the dispute resolution literature since at least the 1960's, when A Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations was first published in 1965 by Richard Walton and Robert McKersie. While the terms were popularized by these two authors, the authors themselves acknowledged the long line of predecessors, including Mary Parker Follett, who led them to promote these categories. Since that time, “integrative” and “distributive” have been with us, and have captured the imagination of scholars, trainers, and practitioners, while remaining popular in the dispute resolution literature today. Despite the proliferation …

Novel Negotiation, Rebecca Hollander-Blumoff

Journal of Dispute Resolution

Over the past half-century, the study of negotiation has blossomed into a robust discipline – negotiation and conflict resolution are recognized fields, with dedicated courses of study, experts, and institutional capital. The field has been inherently interdisciplinary from the outset, combining elements from fields including, but not limited to, economics, political science, law, psychology, anthropology, and sociology. At the University of Missouri Law School’s Tower of Babel symposium in the fall of 2016, the program focused on whether it is possible or even desirable to unify a discipline that is ineluctably diverse. Furthermore, if unification is a desired goal, how …

A “Grand” Unified Negotiation Theory . . . In Context, Adrian Borbély, Noam Ebner, Chris Honeyman, Sanda Kaufman, Andrea Kupfer Schneider

Journal of Dispute Resolution

Negotiation research began in the 20th century and is continuing apace. It is pursued from the perspectives of several disciplines including psychology, organizational behavior, labor relations, decision sciences, game theory, communications, legal studies, international relations, public policy, and others. Added to these are best practices from several fields engaged in intervention in conflicts. By now we have accumulated a considerable volume of wisdom regarding what drives people and entities to negotiate, how they behave when doing so, how they should handle negotiations to obtain specific results, and how to help disputants resolve to come to joint, mutually satisfactory decisions. However, …

Measuring The Creative Plea Bargain, Thea B. Johnson

Faculty Publications

A great deal of criminal law scholarship and practice turns on whether a defendant gets a good deal through plea bargaining. But what is a good deal? And how do defense attorneys secure such deals? Much scholarship measures plea bargains by one metric: how many years the defendant receives at sentencing. In the era of collateral consequences, however, this is no longer an adequate metric as it misses a world of bargaining that happens outside of the sentence. Through empirical research, this Article examines the measure of a good plea and the work that goes into negotiating such a plea. …

How To Learn About Negotiation From Full Length Descriptions Of Real Events, Adrian Borbély, David Matz

Journal of Dispute Resolution

This Article discusses book-length accounts of real negotiations and their value for understanding the process of negotiation. We focus much attention on an excellent example, Thirteen Days in September by Lawrence Wright, which is a rich account of the negotiation in 1978 involving US President Jimmy Carter, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. We are interested in the usefulness and challenges of using such detailed accounts of historical negotiations to build theory. We find it significant that book length detailed accounts of single negotiations have not been on any of the many negotiation syllabi we had …

Should They Listen To Us? Seeking A Negotiation / Conflict Resolution Contribution To Practice In Intractable Conflicts, Chris Honeyman, Sanda Kaufman, Andrea Kupfer Schneider

Journal of Dispute Resolution

Conflict resolution (CR) has had its successes, particularly in what has become common negotiation and mediation practice in divorce, civil litigation, and small to medium scale public policy disputes. Yet despite these practical inroads and increasingly successful dissemination of the ideas of our field, CR practitioners in politics and policy (and other fields) are still conspicuous by their absence in the largest, most consequential conflicts. Negotiation remains the vehicle for addressing international conflicts nonviolently. However, as of 2007 when we first questioned the relative lack of practical impact (at the highest levels) of negotiation scholarship, the international relations practitioners did …

Negotiation Is Changing, Noam Ebner

Journal of Dispute Resolution

Many changes – those we notice, and those that escape our attention until we are quite a ways down a new path – are only the tip of the iceberg of the change that individuals and society are experiencing as a result of the technological developments of the past couple of decades. Introducing technology into every area of our lives, every aspect of our work, and every pocket of our clothes has far-reaching effects, which researchers are only just now uncovering.

We are not only changing our behaviors; we are being changed by our new behaviors: We now conduct our …

Aesthetics In Negotiation: Part One: Four Elements, Nadja Marie Alexander, Michelle Lebaron

All Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Aesthetics In Negotiation: Part Two: The Uses Of Alchemy, Michelle Lebaron, Nadja Marie Alexander

All Faculty Publications

In Part One, in this volume, we discussed the four classic elements — earth, water, air and fire — as paths via which beauty can infuse negotiation. Another way these four elements can be explored is through the organizing concept of alchemy. Alchemy, historically concerned with changing states and physical properties, including turning one substance into another, is essentially concerned with transformation. Given that negotiation — when optimal — may also yield transformation, we examine what alchemical concepts may have to offer here.