On the Forming of Unified Field Theories

In this Article, I will provide some reflections on these intuitive associations between the worlds of negotiation and of physics, in their searches for comprehensive explanations of the phenomena they respectively explore. While the connections between these two searches might be, at best, associative – they may still provide the negotiation field some reflective food for thought. While searching for one unifying theory underlying the forces and elements of negotiation activity, or even for theory explaining clusters of these elements, we might be well served by a clarification of the term we associatively connect with the realm of theoretical physics, and a reminder of some of the history and characteristics of the process of searching for such theory

Negotiation is Changing

Many changes – those we notice, and those that escape our attention until we are quite a ways down a new path – are only the tip of the iceberg of the change that individuals and society are experiencing as a result of the technological developments of the past couple of decades. Introducing technology into every area of our lives, every aspect of our work, and every pocket of our clothes has far-reaching effects, which researchers are only just now uncovering. We are not only changing our behaviors; we are being changed by our new behaviors: We now conduct our banking and shopping online; at the same time, we have changed in the degree of trust we have in technologically-mediated handling of our financial resources. We are not only interacting in new ways; we have created new communicative paths for supporting such interaction: While this may have been dismissed in the past as informal forms of slang used by younger people, many of us are, by now, familiar with a substantial dictionary of internet-age abbreviations; similarly, emoticons have emerged from a smiley and a frowning face into a highly nuanced set of emoji mini-images, capable of supporting entire messages, full conversations, and even literature. We are not only putting our bodies and our brains to work in new ways; our bodies, and especially our brains, are physiologically changing to adapt to these uses: Our brains are mapping out new neurological networks, developing some areas of the brain at the expense of others

Strengthening Online Dispute Resolution Justice

This paper adopts a systems-design approach to focus courts and lawyers on the unexamined: how involving lawyers in the design, development and implementation of court-annexed online dispute resolution (ODR) programs, will strengthen their justice outcomes. The phrase “ODR programs” refers to the new menu of processes for dispute resolution and litigation offered online by courts

What Dinosaurs Can Teach Lawyers About How to Avoid Extinction in the ODR Evolution

This paper is a wake-up call for the legal profession: Heed the justice changes that are upon us or risk extinction. Online dispute resolution (hereinafter ODR) is currently being incorporated into U.S and international court systems, re-shaping and re-defining justice as we know it today. Courts and clients, two stakeholders in our justice system, are increasingly receptive to ODR as a viable option to help provide and access justice efficiently and affordably. The legal profession, the third stakeholder in our justice system, however, has been slower to react. As ODR plays an increasingly prominent role in the court system, it will eliminate some of the justice roles currently reserved for lawyers, diminish others, and create new areas of practice. We highlight ODR innovations already in the justice system and project the paths of ODR’s likely expansion. This paper alerts the legal profession and legal education community to take heed of these developments and become active contributors in shaping these justice innovations. Viewing ODR’s entry into the court as an evolution of the justice system, we identify six adaptive skills that will redefine “thinking like a lawyer” and help the legal profession avoid extinction and remain relevant. Some of these are currently marginally addressed in the law school curriculum, others are entirely absent. Law schools, the primary disseminators of legal education, must re align their curriculum with the skills that practice-competent lawyers require to succeed in the ODR-infused justice system

Trust Building in E-Negotiation

AbstrAct As the global market expands and business and personal relationships are increasingly taking place online, it is common to conduct negotiation processes in the online venue. This chapter focuses on the challenges to inter-party trust in e-negotiation, and on means for overcoming these challenges. It explains the critical role trust plays in negotiation and portrays the ways in which the communication medium through which a negotiation is conducted affects the dynamics of trust-building and trust-breaking. The author lists eight major obstacles to trust formation in e-negotiation and suggests methods not only for avoiding or defusing trust-breaking situations, but for engaging in proactive trus

Assessing Our Students, Assessing Ourselves: Volume 3 in the Rethinking Negotiation Teaching Series

In 2011 more than 60 of the world’s leading negotiation scholars gathered in Beijing for the Rethinking Negotiation Teaching project’s third and final international conference. The event, like the preceding conferences in Rome and Istanbul, was designed to inspire a diverse and energetic group of scholars to push forward their thinking on what is taught and how it is taught in contemporary negotiation courses. The resulting productivity required two volumes. This one is devoted to the challenge of assessment. The choice and application of assessment methods can have a tangible effect on student learning, and this is translated here into an operational principle: that intentional use of adroitly chosen assessment methods can lead to more precise, more practical and even “deeper” learning. This volume’s chapters suggest how, in a variety of ways. The collection is presented not as a closed list of evaluation methods, but as a half-filled toolbox. Teachers are invited to consider and try out a mixture of these methods - and to view the creativity they involve as an invitation to create (and share) their own new, and we hope, increasingly sophisticated tools.https://open.mitchellhamline.edu/dri_press/1002/thumbnail.jp