ABA Section of Dispute Resolution

I've spent the last couple of days at the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution annual conference. It's been interesting, and a bit depressing at times.

The depressing part comes in two waves.

First, it seems to be even more the case than ever that the unthinking assumption is that mediators (and by extension all third parties, since the "mediator" seems still to be the frame in which most people see intervention work) come to the profession through law school. Maybe they are correct, but it's depressing nonetheless.

Second, as Colin Rule put it last night at dinner, we seem still to be talking about the same issues, in the same way, that we were talking about when he entered the field 20 years ago.

There have been some bright spots. Lawrence Susskind delivered the plenary session address yesterday morning, and it was a well phrased, well argued suggestion for how to approach value based conflict. What he said was on point - for example he outlined the "logic of mediation" as 1) parties know their interests, 2) parties and their representative will act rationally, and 3) parties and their representatives will not turn down a deal that is better than no deal. This, of course breaks down when basic values are involved. The only problem I have with Susskind's talk is that, like many of our colleagues from major institutions, the information was delivered as if he had just discovered it and was delivering the stone tablets. There have been a lot of people doing a lot of work related to this issue for a long time - Susskind said it well, and he certainly has the experience to relate the theory to practice, but there are others out there doing good work, too. You can find the full text of his remarks on his blog at http://theconsensusbuildingapproach.blogspot.com/

One other bright side was the attendance at the ODR panel Ethan, Miriam, Howard, and I did yesterday afternoon. The room was pretty full and there was a lot of interest. It seems that each year brings new interest, and new faces into the discussion of ODR. I had a conversation with a gentleman who is putting together an ODR course for a university, which also seems to be more common these days. I'm trying to finish up a short report on a survey of ODR students from the past few years, which will include a very informal survey of ODR courses being offered around the world. I'll post that when it's done - I hope within the next week or two.