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