Diversity Issues in Mediation: Controlling Negative Cultural Myths

This article (by a concerned supporter) explores this criticism of mediation. Part II surveys the critics who argue that mediation\u27s informality and lack of procedure disadvantages members of minority groups and women. Part II then takes the next step that the critics have not taken, explaining how mediation could affect adversely disadvantaged groups. Part III suggests solutions to the problem which involve a greater level of mediator intervention than is generally accepted and defends these solutions

Connection, Capacity and Morality in Lawyer-Client Relationships: Dialogues and Commentary

As important, and difficult, as it is to offer new law students clear and helpful frameworks for the interpersonal work of lawyering, do­ing so is only part of what a clinical textbook may aspire to. In our textbook-in-progress, we hope to offer both frameworks and support for students\u27 sense of the incompleteness of every framework and for their recognition of the need for careful, flexible response to each in­dividual client. Even care and flexibility by themselves are not enough, however, and every text must choose which aspects of law­yer-client relationships it will emphasize most. In the sections that fol­low, we focus on lawyers\u27 development of connection in context, emotional connection and common ground with clients forged even across considerable gaps of difference; on the application of these skills across especially large contextual gaps, as illustrated in an inter­view with a client with a mild intellectual disability; and on the ethics and skills of making one special form of connection with a client, the moral relationship entailed in a moral dialogue. These dialogues and commentaries explore many complex moments between lawyer and client, but they also reaffirm the central importance of a funda­mental skill and virtue - listening - in the lawyer\u27s work of creating, in each case, a theory of the representation

Connection, Capacity and Morality in Lawyer-Client Relationships: Dialogues and Commentary

As important, and difficult, as it is to offer new law students clear and helpful frameworks for the interpersonal work of lawyering, do­ing so is only part of what a clinical textbook may aspire to. In our textbook-in-progress, we hope to offer both frameworks and support for students\u27 sense of the incompleteness of every framework and for their recognition of the need for careful, flexible response to each in­dividual client. Even care and flexibility by themselves are not enough, however, and every text must choose which aspects of law­yer-client relationships it will emphasize most. In the sections that fol­low, we focus on lawyers\u27 development of connection in context, emotional connection and common ground with clients forged even across considerable gaps of difference; on the application of these skills across especially large contextual gaps, as illustrated in an inter­view with a client with a mild intellectual disability; and on the ethics and skills of making one special form of connection with a client, the moral relationship entailed in a moral dialogue. These dialogues and commentaries explore many complex moments between lawyer and client, but they also reaffirm the central importance of a funda­mental skill and virtue - listening - in the lawyer\u27s work of creating, in each case, a theory of the representation