An Appreciation of Marc Galanter’s Scholarship

Lande highlights three of Marc Galanter\u27s works to illustrate qualities that seem especially worth emulating. He includes extended excerpts of his writing because his concepts and language are so evoctive that paraphrasing often does not do them justice. Galanter\u27s works that Lande focuses, include the classic articles, Why the Haves Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change ; and Case Congregations and Their Careers . The professor\u27s recent book, Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture, is also featured. The book is the culmination of much of his work on American law

Shestowsky’s Study Supports Value of Lawyers’ Early Education of Clients About Their Procedural Options

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, lead to post-resolution assessments that reflect early impressions.

LETTER TO KELLY

This is a letter I wrote to someone who was about to start law school. I advised keeping focused on their goals and how best to achieve them. I cautioned about portrayals of lawyers on TV and in the movies. I warned about the “hidden curriculum” which creates misimpressions by focusing on appellate cases. I encouraged them to remember what it is like to be a “normal” person, a perspective they may forget after being initiated in the legal tribe. I advised trying to see the world through others’ eyes

SIMULATIONS BASED ON ACTUAL CASES – WHY REINVENT THE WHEEL?

This post describes Debra Berman’s use of materials from actual cases for simulations in her negotiation and mediation courses. She provides litigation documents, including the complaint, motions, and other documents such as discovery requests, disclosures, and scheduling orders as well as a short settlement memo that she drafts. She observed dramatic improvements in her students’ performance. They were excited to work with real cases and were more prepared

TRAINING YOUR MEDIATOR BOT

This somewhat tongue-in-cheek post discusses biases in AI systems. Noting that AI bots need to be “trained,” this post suggests that untrained mediator bots may spew out unwanted interventions such as providing undesired evaluations of BATNA values – or failing to provide desired evaluations. So mediators probably will need to co-mediate with their bots for a while to observe and correct its biases. Ironically, bots may produce language that normal humans understand much better than the confusing jargon we habitually use. So the mediator bots may need to train human mediators

RESOURCES FOR TEACHING ABOUT BATNA, BOTTOM LINES, AND LIRA

Practically every negotiation, mediation, and ADR survey course teaches students that they should figure out their BATNA when negotiating or mediating. This is much easier said than done. This post provides lots of resources to help faculty teach students about BATNAs and – more importantly – about bottom lines. For additional publications about these topics, see Sections 3.A and 5

DWIGHT GOLANN ON A YEAR OF ZOOM MEDIATIONS

This post summarizes Dwight Golann’s article, “I Sometimes Catch Myself Looking Angry or Tired …” The Impact of Mediating by Zoom. He concludes, “Mediating by Zoom is a much more positive experience than people expected and will be a large part of the field in the future.

RESOURCES FOR USING REAL PRACTICE SYSTEMS MATERIALS IN TEACHING

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 real case(s) in their courses, or (3) a description of students’ desired system after they graduate. This post includes templates for assignments that faculty could tailor to their courses

DEALING WITH CAUSES AS WELL AS SYMPTOMS OF LAW STUDENTS’ AND LAWYERS’ LACK OF WELL-BEING

This post discusses the National Task Force on Lawyer Well-Being’s report, The Path to Lawyer Well-Being: Practical Recommendations for Positive Change. The report recommends that faculty “assess law school practices and offer faculty education on promoting well-being in the classroom.” It cites research suggesting that “potential culprits that undercut student well-being includ[e] hierarchical markers of worth such as comparative grading, mandatory curves, status-seeking placement practices, lack of clear and timely feedback, and teaching practices that are isolating and intimidating.” This post notes that legal practice is inherently stressful and recommends changing legal practice culture. Individual practitioners may reduce their stress by adopting a norm of problem-solving in serving clients whenever appropriate

LIRA VIDEOS

This post collects lots of videos of presentations I gave about LIRA