Law Commons^™

Real Mediation Systems To Help Parties And Mediators Achieve Their Goals, John M. Lande

Faculty Publications

This article argues that it is time for a paradigm shift in our current general mediation theory because of numerous problems. Our current theory is incomplete at best and seriously misleading at worst. The traditional mediation models are oversimplified, poorly mapping onto the reality of practice. They combine multiple elements that are not necessarily correlated. Many practitioners ignore them because they are confusing or not helpful. People do not understand the theoretical meanings because the terms are not consistent with commonly understood language. Arguments about what is or is not real or good mediation have spawned unhelpful ideological divisions in …

Designing Responsive Legal Systems: A Comparative Study, Nofit Amir, Michal Alberstein

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

The drive for efficiency has caused many legal systems to redesign themselves, creating multiple paths for dispute resolution and incorporating settlement-promoting tools into the judicial role. However, as this study shows, legal systems have taken divergent approaches as they redesign themselves to accommodate settlement practices, leading to widely disparate results. This study probes the paths taken by three countries’ legal systems—England and Wales (common law), Israel (mixed), and Italy (continental law)—drawing on court docket analyses, courtroom observations, and interviews with judges in the three legal systems. It uncovers central points of divergence—emphasized stage of dispute resolution, separation vs. combination of …

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 …

Employment Arbitration Agreements: The Case For Ethical Standards For Dispute Resolution System Designers, Michael L. Russell

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

Dispute resolution design is an emerging field, both academically and professionally. Attorneys, mediators, and arbitrators, the other roles in the alternative dispute resolution process, have codes of ethics which guide their conduct. Dispute resolution designers, however, have no such guidelines. This article uses the example of mandatory arbitration agreements in the employment context to illustrate why this lack of ethical guidelines for dispute resolutions designers is problematic. In recent years, mandatory arbitration agreements significantly impacted employment law and litigation. The two most problematic provisions that often appear in mandatory arbitration agreements in the workplace context are cost sharing provisions and …

Introduction To Symposium On "Adr's Place In Navigating A Polarized Era", Nancy A. Welsh

Faculty Scholarship

Ours is a nation built for conflict, for friction. Such conflict, while painful, can be good. It can signal newfound agency, and it can be a catalyst for dialogue, customized and creative solutions, and ultimately progress. This is what many dispute resolution academics teach their students. But we are caught in such an extraordinarily polarized time, and many wonder what role ADR can and should play in navigating a polarized era. That was the question addressed by Texas A&M School of Law's March 2020 symposium, with the resulting articles - by Baruch Bush & Peter Miller, Jonathan Cohen, Jill DeTemple, …

The Thoughtful Integration Of Mediation Into Bilateral Investment Treaty Arbitration, Nancy A. Welsh, Andrea Kupfer Schneider

Nancy Welsh

While the current system of investment treaty arbitration has definitely improved upon the “gunboat diplomacy” used at times to address disputes between states and foreign investors, there are signs that reform is needed: states and investors increasingly express concerns regarding the costs associated with the arbitration process, some states refuse to comply with arbitral awards, other states hesitate to sign new bilateral investment treaties, and citizens have begun to engage in popular unrest at the prospect of investment treaty arbitration. As a result, both investors and states are advocating for the use of mediation to supplement investor-state arbitration. This Article …

I Could Have Been A Contender: Summary Jury Trial As A Means To Overcome Iqbal's Negative Effects Upon Pre-Litigation Communication, Negotiation And Early, Consensual Dispute Resolution, Nancy A. Welsh

Nancy Welsh

With its recent decisions in Ashcroft v. Iqbal and Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, the Supreme Court may be intentionally or unintentionally “throwing the fight,” at least in the legal contests between many civil rights claimants and institutional defendants. The most obvious feared effect is reduction of civil rights claimants’ access to the expressive and coercive power of the courts. Less obviously, the Supreme Court may be effectively undermining institutions’ motivation to negotiate, mediate - or even communicate with and listen to - such claimants before they initiate legal action. Thus, the Supreme Court’s recent decisions have the potential to deprive …

Human-Centered Civil Justice Design, Victor D. Quintanilla

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article introduces a novel approach to improving the civil justice system, referred to as human-centered civil justice design. The approach synthesizes insights and practices from two interdisciplinary strands: human-centered design thinking and dispute system design. The approach is rooted in human experiences with the processes, systems, people, and environments that members of the public encounter when navigating the civil justice system and how these experiences interact with the entangled web of hardships and legal adversities they face in the everyday.

Human-centered civil justice designers empathize with the intended beneficiaries and stakeholders of the civil justice system, seeking to deeply …

Fitting The Forum To The Pernicious Fuss: A Dispute System Design To Address Implicit Bias And 'Isms In The Workplace, Elayne E. Greenberg

Elayne E Greenberg

This proposal is a heretofore untaken first step in the dispute system design for implicit bias. It offers a different type of thinking about workplace discrimination caused by implicit bias and a different way to resolve it.

Until now, workplace discrimination caused by implicit biases has gone unabated, because the courts and EEOC mediation programs are better designed to address workplace discrimination caused by explicit biases. As the social science research clarifies, there are salient differences between workplace discrimination animated by implicit biases and workplace discrimination shaped by explicit biases discrimination. We now understand that we all have implicit biases, …

Fitting The Forum To The Pernicious Fuss: A Dispute System Design To Address Implicit Bias And 'Isms In The Workplace, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

This paper proposes a dispute system design to address workplace discrimination caused by implicit biases so that employees and employers involved in such disputes can secure a more responsive justice than existing legal processes are able to provide. Workplace discrimination caused by implicit bias conties to contaminate our work environment despite our focused legal efforts to combat such overt "isms" as sexism, racism, ageism, and ableism. Although overt expressions of bias have significantly decreased in recent years, expressions of implicit bias, the primary cause of workplace discrimination, persists.

This paper extends the research on implicit bias to dispute system design …

The Thoughtful Integration Of Mediation Into Bilateral Investment Treaty Arbitration, Nancy A. Welsh, Andrea Kupfer Schneider

Faculty Scholarship

While the current system of investment treaty arbitration has definitely improved upon the “gunboat diplomacy” used at times to address disputes between states and foreign investors, there are signs that reform is needed: states and investors increasingly express concerns regarding the costs associated with the arbitration process, some states refuse to comply with arbitral awards, other states hesitate to sign new bilateral investment treaties, and citizens have begun to engage in popular unrest at the prospect of investment treaty arbitration. As a result, both investors and states are advocating for the use of mediation to supplement investor-state arbitration. This Article …

I Could Have Been A Contender: Summary Jury Trial As A Means To Overcome Iqbal's Negative Effects Upon Pre-Litigation Communication, Negotiation And Early, Consensual Dispute Resolution, Nancy A. Welsh

Faculty Scholarship

With its recent decisions in Ashcroft v. Iqbal and Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, the Supreme Court may be intentionally or unintentionally “throwing the fight,” at least in the legal contests between many civil rights claimants and institutional defendants. The most obvious feared effect is reduction of civil rights claimants’ access to the expressive and coercive power of the courts. Less obviously, the Supreme Court may be effectively undermining institutions’ motivation to negotiate, mediate - or even communicate with and listen to - such claimants before they initiate legal action. Thus, the Supreme Court’s recent decisions have the potential to deprive …

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 …

I Could Have Been A Contender: Summary Jury Trial As A Means To Overcome Iqbal's Negative Effects Upon Pre-Litigation Communication, Negotiation And Early, Consensual Dispute Resolution, Nancy A. Welsh

Journal Articles

With its recent decisions in Ashcroft v. Iqbal and Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, the Supreme Court may be intentionally or unintentionally “throwing the fight,” at least in the legal contests between many civil rights claimants and institutional defendants. The most obvious feared effect is reduction of civil rights claimants’ access to the expressive and coercive power of the courts. Less obviously, the Supreme Court may be effectively undermining institutions’ motivation to negotiate, mediate - or even communicate with and listen to - such claimants before they initiate legal action. Thus, the Supreme Court’s recent decisions have the potential to deprive …

Designing Justice: Legal Institutions And Other Systems For Managing Conflict, Lisa Blomgren Bingham

Lisa Blomgren Bingham

This article argues that lawyers are designing justice through institutional and dispute system design, but that we are neither training law students for their new role nor are we having a deliberative discussion of the nature of justice these systems provide. First, I briefly introduce the field of institutional analysis and design in social science. Second, I describe the field of dispute system design (DSD) and apply elements of institutional analysis. Third, I survey how scholars have discussed varieties of justice in relation to legal institutions and other systems for managing conflict. I conclude that we should move more knowingly …

The Movement Toward Early Case Handling In Courts And Private Dispute Resolution, John Lande

John Lande

This article identifies early case handling (ECH) as an important general phenomenon in dispute system design theory and practice, catalogs the major ECH processes, and urges practitioners and policymakers to encourage use of and experimentation with ECH processes when appropriate. The key element of ECH is that people intentionally exercise responsibility for handling the case from the outset. ECH processes in courts include early case management procedures, differentiated case management systems, early neutral evaluation, and other early alternative dispute resolution (ADR) processes. ECH in the private sector includes ADR pledges and contract clauses, early case assessment and ADR screening protocols, …

Principles For Policymaking About Collaborative Law And Other Adr Processes, John Lande

John Lande

This Article articulates a set of principles for policymaking about “alternative dispute resolution” (ADR) to promote values of process pluralism, choice in dispute resolution processes, and sound decisionmaking. It argues that policymakers should use a dispute system design (DSD) framework in analyzing policy options. DSD involves systematically managing a series of disputes rather than handling individual disputes on an ad hoc basis. It generally includes assessing the needs of disputants and other stakeholders, planning to address those needs, providing necessary training and education for disputants and dispute resolution professionals, implementing the system, evaluating it, and making periodic modifications as needed. …

Using Dispute System Design Methods To Promote Good-Faith Participation In Court-Connected Mediation Programs, John Lande

John Lande

This Article discusses what can be done to promote productive behavior in mediation and reduce bad conduct. Although most participants do not abuse the mediation process, some people use mediation to drag out litigation, gain leverage for later negotiations, and generally wear down the opposition. Rules requiring good-faith participation are likely to be ineffective and possibly counterproductive. This Article proposes using dispute system design principles to develop policies satisfying the interests of stakeholders in court-connected mediation programs. After outlining interests of key stakeholder groups including litigants, attorneys, courts, and mediators, the Article describes specific policies that could satisfy their interests. …

Using Dispute System Design Methods To Promote Good-Faith Participation In Court-Connected Mediation Programs, John M. Lande

Faculty Publications

This article discusses what can be done to promote productive behavior in mediation and reduce bad conduct. Although most participants do not abuse the mediation process, some people use mediation to drag out litigation, gain leverage for later negotiations, and generally wear down the opposition. Rules requiring good-faith participation are likely to be ineffective and possibly counterproductive. This article proposes using dispute system design principles to develop policies satisfying the interests of stakeholders in court-connected mediation programs. After outlining important interests of key stakeholder groups, including litigants, attorneys, courts, and mediators, the Article describes specific policies that could satisfy their …

Mediation Paradigms And Professional Identities: Can Mediators Activate A New Movement For Justice?, John M. Lande

Faculty Publications

This article, written early in the modern ADR era, provided a framework for developing the mediation field. It begins by elaborating William Simon’s critique of the “ideology of advocacy.” Simon argues that the adversary system is supposed to foster values of individuality, autonomy, responsibility, and dignity, but it often undermines those values in practice. This article catalogs a “parade of horribles” experienced by disputants, attorneys, judges, and the public. These include unequal access to justice, procedural rules that frustrate substantive justice, a narrow set of available remedies, a game psychology undermines respect for law and justice, parties’ alienating experience in …