Law Commons^™

Using Real Practice Systems Resources In Practice, John M. Lande

Faculty Blogs

This post describes how mediators can use ideas and materials from the Real Practice Systems Project to better understand and improve their own mediation systems. Mediators’ practice systems are the combination of factors affecting what they do before, during, and after mediation sessions. These systems include their routine procedures and strategies for dealing with recurring challenging situations. Trainers and mediation program administrators can use this to help mediators in their programs.

Resources For Using Real Practice Systems Materials In Teaching, John Lande

Faculty Blogs

This post describes how faculty can use ideas and materials from the Real Practice Systems Project to help students get realistic understandings of practice. Although the project has generally focused on the systems that mediators develop and use, it can be adapted to understand the perspectives of lawyers acting as advocates in mediation, negotiators, and in legal practice generally. In addition to requiring or recommending that students read publications about real practice systems, faculty could assign students to write papers such as (1) a Stone Soup interview of a practitioner, (2) a description of students’ actual system in simulated or …

Shifting The Central Paradigm To Dispute System Design, John Lande

Faculty Blogs

This post argues that instead of identifying our field as ADR, we should use dispute system design as our central theoretical framework. Although people often think of DSD as being used only in large organizations, individuals and small practice groups also handle streams of cases and can use these principles and techniques to improve their case management and dispute resolution procedures. DSD is about tailoring dispute systems to the needs of stakeholders, especially disputing parties. Good designs fit the stakeholders’ context and culture so that the dispute processes produce as much satisfaction of the parties’ procedural and substantive goals as …

Houston, We Have A Problem In The Dispute Resolution Field, John M. Lande

Faculty Blogs

Parties are supposed to actively participate in mediation (and other dispute resolution processes to some extent), and thus they need to understand what experts are saying. Lawyers representing clients in mediation especially need to understand the process to fulfill their ethical responsibility of competence. And certainly mediators should understand basic concepts of mediation.

Shestowsky’S Study Supports Value Of Lawyers’ Early Education Of Clients About Their Procedural Options, John M. Lande, John Lande

Faculty Blogs

This post summarizes parts of Donna Shestowsky’s study on parties’ expectations about the process used to resolve their cases. She writes, “Our findings suggest the value of educating litigants about legal procedures, helping them develop realistic expectations for what each procedure can entail for their situation, and helping them make informed decisions about whether to attend their procedures. . . . Our results suggest how important it is for lawyers to educate their clients about each of their procedural options. Effective education and managing client expectations might lead to the formation of attitudes that reflect realistic expectations, and, in turn, …

Readings And Resources For Teaching, John Lande

Faculty Blogs

This post provides links to resources that instructors can use when teaching dispute resolution.

Study Of Odr In Family Cases With Positive Results, John Lande

Faculty Blogs

This post summarizes the results of a study finding that parties who used ODR for child custody, parenting time, or child support matters were more likely to reach agreement and to rate their experience more highly than those who declined to use ODR.

The Legal Profession, Judiciary, And Dispute Resolution, John M. Lande

Faculty Blogs

The January 2022 issue of Dispute Resolution Magazine reports results of a survey of past contributors conducted by Editorial Board co-chairs Andrea Schneider and Michael Moffitt.

This post uses some of the survey responses to suggest that we recognize the legal profession and judiciary as part of the dispute resolution field.

How You Can Build A Mediation Model To Optimize Your Own Cases, John M. Lande

Faculty Blogs

Description of why formal mediation models, such as the facilitative and evaluative models, are incomplete and often misleading. Mediators constantly must answer the question “What do I do now?”, and the formal models don’t help in most situations. Lande suggests how mediators can develop their own, unique mediation models, relying in part on the work of psychologists Kenneth Kressel, Daniel Kahneman, and Amos Tversky.