Artificial intelligence (AI) has arrived – and it’s not just here to win at chess, write mediocre love poems, or suggest the perfect Spotify playlist.  It’s pulling up a chair at the dispute resolution table.
In When AI Comes to the Table: How Tech Tools Will Change ADR, I explore the growing wave of AI-powered tools designed to support every stage of dispute resolution, from prevention through process design, party support, and deciding outcomes.
The core message?  Some AI-DR tools are here now, and more are on the way.
The article outlines seven categories of AI tools.  Some aim…
Continue Reading When AI Comes to the Table: A Taste of the Future for Dispute Resolution

Imagine doing your work without word processing, spell checkers, email, the internet, search engines, voicemail, cell phones, or Zoom.
That’s how you’ll probably feel in the not-too-distant future about working without artificial intelligence (AI).
Innovations often seem radical at first.  In time, people just take them for granted.
ABA Formal Opinion 512 states that lawyers soon may be ethically obligated to use AI.  “As GAI [general artificial intelligence] tools continue to develop and become more widely available, it is conceivable that lawyers will eventually have to use them to competently complete certain tasks for clients.”
AI isn’t replacing dispute resolution…
Continue Reading AI and Dispute Resolution: Why You’ll Need It Sooner Than You Think

Would you like to see how a cool AI-DR tool works?
If so, come to a program, Using AI to Help Mediators, Attorneys and Parties.
It will be on Zoom on Wednesday, May 28, at 10 PT, 11 MT, noon CT, 1 ET.  The program will be an hour – and you can stay on for an additional 30 minutes to continue the conversation if you like.
Here’s the link for the program.  Meeting ID: 825 9107 8452.  Passcode: 315139
I developed the AI Real Practice Systems (RPS) Negotiation and Mediation Coach tool to help (1) attorneys anticipate challenges,…
Continue Reading Zoom Program on May 28: Using AI to Help Mediators, Attorneys, and Parties

Roselle Wissler (Arizona State) and I have published our final article empirically examining aspects of initial joint sessions and initial caucuses. Participant Actions and Intermediate Outcomes in Initial Joint Sessions and Initial Caucuses recently appeared in the Journal of Dispute Resolution (here). The findings are based on the online survey responses of over 1000 civil and family mediators who conduct court-based and private mediation in eight states across the country.
We found that actions that traditionally took place during joint opening sessions and were thought to contribute to informational and relational benefits are still largely associated with those…
Continue Reading Participant Actions and Intermediate Outcomes in Initial Joint Sessions and Initial Caucuses – Final Article from Study of Over 1,000 Mediators

From RSI, with kudos to Judge Denlow who created a legal settlement database, helping to provide actual data about settlement versus litigation.  More below from the press release:
Resolution Systems Institute had the privilege of awarding its 2025 Harris H. Agnew Service to Community Award to the Hon. Morton Denlow (Ret.) on April 25 at JAMS’ offices in downtownChicago. The Hon. Geraldine Soat Brown (Ret.)presented the award. Celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2025,Resolution Systems Institute (RSI) is a Chicago based national nonprofit known for its cutting edge research on alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and issues impacting litigants and courtswith limited…
Continue Reading Resolute Systems Inc (RSI) Presents the Agnew Community Service Award to Judge Morton Denlow

This year the Lodestar Dispute Resolution Center at Arizona State is taking the Schiefelbein Global Dispute Resolution Conference on the road this year.  The conference will be on Thursday June 27th in Geneva, Switzerland in partnership with the Geneva Center for International Dispute Settlement.  This year’s keynote speaker is Professor Anthony Patt, Ph.D, Professor of Climate Policy at ETH Zurich.  As you might have guessed, the program’s theme is climate change with panels on Industry and Climate Dispute Resolution, Climate Change and Arbitration Institutions, and Climate Disputes in Domestic Courts.  To find out more about the conference and…
Continue Reading Schiefelbein Global Dispute Resolution Conference – Geneva June 27, 2025

The Divided Community Project’s new fourth edition of Leading a Divided Campus: Ideas and Illustrations (4th ed) offers ideas for supporting students during conflict. Feel free to forward the link, go.osu.edu/dcpcampus4, to those you know in your university’s counsel, student affairs, ombuds, and security offices. DCP’s Speaking Out to Strengthen the Guardrails of Democracy (2023) may help you convey how independent universities support our democracy.The fourth edition’s publication is timed to fit the planning time between academic years. If you forward it, feel free to emphasize that your university colleagues can adapt and re-brand the checklists within the…
Continue Reading Divided Community Project Publications – helping students in a time of conflict

FOI, Professor Stacie Strong will be publishing her groundbreaking article on Artificial Intelligence and Arbitration in an upcoming issue of the Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution. Here is the abstract and the link to download:https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5239069 Artificial Intelligence in Civil Justice Systems: An Empirical and Interdisciplinary Analysis and Proposal for Moving Forward (May 02, 2025). Emory Legal Studies Research Paper, 41 Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution (forthcoming 2026)

Artificial intelligence – particularly generative artificial intelligence – has become one of the leading challenges of our time. One particular area of concern involves the effect of generative artificial intelligence…
Continue Reading Stacie Strong on Artificial Intelligence and Arbitration in Ohio State’s Journal on Dispute Resolution

I just posted a document collecting publications about the RPS Negotiation and Mediation Coach (RPS Coach), an AI tool designed to support good decision-making and reflective practice in negotiation and mediation.
It includes brief descriptions and links to blog posts and articles about:

• Introducing RPS Coach
• Using Artificial Intelligence Tools
• Writing with the Coach
• Using Coach in Legal Education

It also includes links to videos and podcasts.
This document will be updated as new pieces are published.
If you’re curious about using AI in your practice, your courses, helping students reflect more deeply, or exploring practice theory with an
Continue Reading Collection of Resources about RPS Coach

Many of us teach mediation courses focused on preparing students to serve as neutrals.
Our courses don’t focus much on preparing them to represent clients in mediation, a role they are far more likely to perform soon after graduation.
I just posted my latest Theory Meets Practice column for CPR’s Alternatives magazine, The Art of Mediation Representation: Helping Clients Make Good Decisions.
It outlines the theory and practice of mediation representation, drawing on Real Practice Systems checklists, recent research, and techniques of practical lawyering.  It emphasizes how attorneys can help clients make informed, confident decisions before, during, and after…
Continue Reading New Article on Mediation Representation – and an Invitation for a Conversation at the ABA DR Conference

It is with sadness that I pass along news of the demise of Dispute Resolution Magazine as we know it.  ABA DR Section Chair Susan Guthrie made the announcement in a recent email sent to the Section’s membership tying the decision to funding restraints.  As Co-Chair of the Editorial Board (along w/ our very own Jen Reynolds), I can vouch for that – nobody wanted this to happen.  The Section, along with all of the ABA, is suffering from serious financial difficulties like many other professional organizations are.  What saddens me the most is that the magazine has been a…
Continue Reading The ABA’s Dispute Resolution Magazine is dead. Long live Dispute Resolution Magazine !!

Many of the people we admire for their work on dispute resolution aren’t formally part of the dispute resolution community.  They include lawyers, judges, law professors, and others whose work embodies the spirit of our field – even when they use different language, work in other disciplines, or serve in different roles.
Some time ago, I wrote a post, You Really Should Know About Kris Franklin, about a family law professor whose pedagogy and worldview reflect the deepest values of our field.  This post is in that same spirit.
You really should know about John Inazu.
John Inazu…
Continue Reading You Really Should Know About John Inazu

Despite being a card-carrying member of the if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it school of innovation, I dove headfirst into the world of AI.
Why?  Because it turns out to be amazingly useful.
In a short piece, Technology and Me and You:  Getting Comfortable with AI, I reflect on how I came to develop the RPS Coach AI tool.  I explain why I think many of us – even some folks who now are wary of AI – will regularly use AI tools in thoughtful ways.
My piece highlights a common misconception that AI simply spits out answers that we blindly accept, abdicating our…
Continue Reading Why This Tech-Wary Curmudgeon Went All-In on AI – And You Might Too