What about Mom and apple pie? For or against? Most people take for granted that all these things are indisputably good (at least in theory) though we usually don’t think much about why. Not so with Andrew Mamo. He recently published Unsettling the Self: Rethinking Self-Determination in Mediation, which deeply analyzes the meaning of self-determination. … Continue reading Are You in Favor of Self-Determination in Mediation?
It’s not breaking news that law school graduates generally have difficulty working with clients, don’t understand the “big picture” of client matters, and aren’t well trained in negotiation. The problem for law students and law schools is exacerbated by the transition to the NextGen bar exam and a movement in various states to use alternative … Continue reading Two Short Articles Proposing Courses Teaching Preparation and Advocacy in Dispute Resolution
Are you going to teach a law school mediation course this fall? If so, I suggest that you read It’s Time to Make Important Upgrades to Our Mediation Curriculum right away. It’s also relevant to ADR survey, negotiation, and lawyering courses. The article includes numerous suggestions and links to handy resources that you can incorporate … Continue reading If You Will Teach a Law School Mediation Course This Fall, Read This Article Right Away
Here are excerpts from an article in the ABA Journal: Oregon’s new Supervised Practice Portfolio Examination that allows ABA-accredited law school graduates to join the state’s bar by working closely with a supervising attorney instead of taking the bar exam is gaining traction with candidates and potential employers. … The additional pathway allows applicants to … Continue reading Oregon’s Alternative Pathway to the Bar Proves Popular
At its midyear meeting, the ABA House of Delegates unanimously approved Resolution 500, which states: That the American Bar Association urges lawyers and all interested parties to increase the informed and voluntary use of Early Dispute Resolution: party-directed, non-adjudicative approaches to resolve disputes in a time-efficient and cost-effective manner, including, but not limited to, direct … Continue reading ABA Adopts Policy Encouraging Early Dispute Resolution
“The Washington Supreme Court has adopted alternative pathways to a law license, becoming the second state to do so in a little more than four months,” according to this ABA Journal article. The Court approved three ways to bypass a bar exam in Washington state, with different standards for law school graduates, law students and … Continue reading Washington State Follows Oregon and Wisconsin by Approving Alternatives to Bar Exam
It’s not exactly breaking news that a major function of American law schools is to train an upper stratum of students for jobs as associates in elite law firms and as judicial clerks. Parsing appellate case opinions and ace-ing closed-book exams are tasks especially well designed for this purpose. Although these activities reflect some important … Continue reading Law Students Can Use Portfolios to Plan Their Practice Systems
On the AALS listserv, Gabe Teninbaum (Suffolk) asked, “[H]ow do we teach students to define successful outcomes in a given scenario? And how do we help them understand how to communicate with clients about defining their own success? As a former litigator, I remember balancing clients’ varied goals (their definition of “winning” didn’t always comport … Continue reading Helping Law Students Define and Pursue Success
So far, my pieces in the Real Practice Systems Project have focused on mediation. The theory is not limited to mediation, and this post applies it to lawyering. In the mediation context, the theory argues that mediators have unique practice systems that grow out of their personal histories, values, goals, motivations, knowledge, and skills as … Continue reading Real Lawyering Practice Systems
Brian Farkas has been deeply involved in our field since he was a student at Cardozo, where he was the editor-in-chief of the Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution. He is an attorney at ArentFox Schiff LLP, a prolific author and speaker, and a regular adjunct professor at Cardozo. He is one of the people who … Continue reading Brian Farkas: Using Checklists in My Course on the Law of Settlement