Court ADR 25 Years After Pound: Have We Found a Better Way?

Published in cooperation with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolutio

Reciprocal Coaching to Reduce the Risk of False Failure in Mediation and Support from Social Science for Coaching Ideas

Published in cooperation with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolutio

Hosting Mediations as a Representative of the System of Civil Justice

Published in cooperation with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolutio

Thoughts about Spiritual Fatigue: Sustaining Our Energy by Staying Centered

Spiritual fatigue can afflict seasoned mediators and judges who have hosted many settlement conferences.\u27 It can sap the energy we need to do our work well. It can reduce our patience, shorten our anger fuses, and impair our ability to listen to and to connect with the people we are trying to help. Worse, it can lead us into procedural or ethical temptation-inviting us to cut comers and compromise values we hold dear. If it persists too long, it can drive us away from this field. Thus, for those of us who experience it, spiritual fatigue can pose a serious threat

Continuing the Conversation about the Current Status and the Future of ADR: A View from the Courts

In this essay I would like to complement the picture that Professor Sander has presented by adding information about and commentary from the perspective of the courts. After offering some general observations about the current status of ADR in the courts, I will describe what I think the near-term future looks like. Then I will articulate values that we need to take special care to preserve in court-sponsored ADR programs. I also will identify dangers that we, as courts, must try to avoid on the road ahead. Along the way, I will respond specifically to three of the concerns that Professor Sander raises: (1) the still relatively widespread lack of accurate knowledge in clients and lawyers about various aspects of ADR, (2) the absence of readily available public dispute resolution centers, and (3) the pressure from legislators and other makers of public policy to demonstrate through adequate costbenefit studies that publicly supported ADR programs deliver sufficient value to justify the public funding they receive

The Center of the Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution

Hawaii was one of the first states to establish within its judiciary a Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution. The Center\u27s mission is: to mediate major public policy disputes and to facilitate policy formulation dialogues, to design and help implement mediation and other ADR programs for state and local governmental agencies, to provide education about and training in mediation for the public and for employees of state and local government, and to oversee the extensive network of community mediation centers that provide grass-roots mediation services throughout the Islands. In November of 2005 the Center celebrated its 20th anniversary by sponsoring various activities and events. These included a series of seminars on the Uniform Mediation Act, a program on negotiating with the assistance of a judge, a peace poster contest for school children, and a colorful and spirited ceremony in the historic courtroom of the Hawaii Supreme Court. I was asked to be one of the speakers at that ceremony. I had two goals: (1) to help a wider audience understand why the courts in Hawaii have been so committed to providing ADR services, and (2) to try to capture the essence of the spirit that animates the Center\u27s wonderful work. In pursuit of the first of these two ends, I contrasted the history and purposes of ADR programs in institutionally selfish courts with the history and purposes of court-sponsorship of ADR in Hawaii. The second goal was more elusive - but I hope I located, in my account of the special kind of listening the Center teaches, something close to the Center\u27s spiritual center