Maria Volpe notes that a new publication from the Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, confuses arbitration and mediation. Sad to see this. From the handbook:Important Qualities for Arbitrators, Mediators, and Conciliators• Critical-thinking skills. Arbitrators, mediators, and conciliators must apply rules of law. They must remain neutral and not let their own personal assumptions interfere with the proceedings.• Decision-making skills. Arbitrators, mediators, and conciliators must be able to weigh facts, apply the law or rules, and make a decision relatively quickly.• Interpersonal skills. Arbitrators, mediators, and conciliators deal with disputing parties and must be able to facilitate discussion in
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Hoisted By Their Own Petard: Samsung Must Pay Arbitration Fees in Mass Arbitration
In Wallrich, et al. v. Samsung, Case No. 22-CV-5506 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 12, 2023), federal district court judge Harry D. Leinenweber ordered Samsung to pay arbitration fees for almost 50,000 arbitration demands – and submit to arbitrating consumers’ claims that Samsung had committed violations of the Illinois privacy laws. Note that the court required this payment even though the arbitration provider was willing to waive the payment, pursuant to a provision in its supplemental rules. Here is a report on the case from Duane Morris:“The Named Plaintiffs filed 49,986 arbitration claims with the American Arbitration Association (“AAA”) on September 7,…
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Cynthia Alkon to Deliver Moritz’s 2023 Lawrence Lecture
On Thursday September 28 (beginning at 12:10 eastern), Texas A&M Professor Cynthia Alkon will deliver The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law’s 2023 Lawrence Lecture on Dispute Resolution: “Negotiating for Justice in our Criminal Legal System.” Here is the description from OSU’s website.
There is widespread and bipartisan agreement that the criminal legal system in the United States is broken and in need of reform. Yet, little has changed. Mass incarceration continues to be a feature of the US criminal legal system. There are birth-to-prison pipelines where simply being born in a poor and underprivileged neighborhood vastly increases…
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CJCR Symposium on Hybrid Warfare–In Print and Online!

I am delighted to link to the most recent issue of the Cardozo Journal on Conflict Resolution here.
We hosted this terrific event last fall and are happy to have this wonderful slate of articles and authors as the product. The table of contents is below:
Much appreciation to all of our speakers, authors and student editors on the Journal!!
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Deputy Counsel – ICC Court of Arbitration
The International Chamber of Commerce is seeking applicants to be Deputy Counsel, based in New York City, primarily working with cases in the North American region. I’m told that they generally look for folks who are a few years out of law school and know arbitration well, even if they haven’t formally worked in the field as counsel.
Go here for the job posting and the basic job description is below
The role involves both legal and administrative tasks, including:
- Reviewing and processing requests for arbitration and other documents filed by parties, arbitrators, and others during arbitration proceedings.
- Preparing agendas
…
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Last Chance to Submit Proposal for ABA Conference – Sept. 13 Deadline
From Corinne N. Stuber on behalf of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution:
The ABA Dispute Resolution Section is now accepting program proposals for our 2024 Spring Conference that will be held April 10–13, 2024, in San Diego, CA.
This year’s conference theme is Mastering the Future: Revolutionizing Dispute Resolution in a Dynamic World.
We welcome program proposals from anyone who can enlighten and connect with our anticipated attendees, who include dispute resolution leaders, mediators, arbitrators, ombuds, judges, attorney advocates, court administrators, neutral providers, ADR consumers, and legal educators.
The proposal deadline is Wednesday, September 13 at 5 p.m. ET,…
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DSD at its Best?

So…my youngest son graduated this spring (yay!) and moved home (yay!) and we needed another car (boo!) This was made even sadder by the fact that there was very little negotiation to be done–if you’ve tried to buy a car since the pandemic, you know the market is still quite wonky with a very limited supply of used cars. This means that there is little room to negotiate–and for the negotiation professor who views car buying as market/real-world research, this is just sad.
But here is what made me happy: my two sons (of three) who live in Milwaukee were…
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Silicon Valley Arbitration & Mediation Center Publishes Draft Guidelines on AI use in Arbitration for Comment
On August 31st, the Silicon Valley Arbitration & Mediation Center issued draft guidelines for comment.
The guidelines were written for the benefit of “arbitral institutions, arbitrators, parties and their representatives (including counsel), experts, and, where relevant, other participants in the arbitral process.” The guidelines include a model clause that the center suggests parties could incorporate into their arbitrations.
The following is the model clause set forth in the Draft Guidelines:
“The Tribunal and the parties agree that the Silicon Valley Arbitration and Mediation Center’s Guidelines…
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AAA Accepting Applications for Diverse Student Summit
I am posting the following announcement on behalf of the AAA
The American Arbitration Association® (AAA®) is the global leader in alternative dispute resolution (ADR), and as such, is committed to the growth of diversity and inclusion within the ADR field. Since 2009, the AAA A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. Fellows Program has provided training, networking, and mentorship for up-and-coming diverse ADR practitioners—many of whom have advanced to appointment to the AAA Roster and have been selected to serve on cases.
THE DIVERSITY STUDENT ADR SUMMIT: As part of our ongoing commitment, the AAA is hosting an ADR Summit for diverse…
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Visiting Professor Job at the US Air Force Academy
For those that might be interested, the US Air Force Academy is looking for a visiting professor to teach Negotiation in 2024-25.
Here is the full listing:
The Department of Law at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, offers an undergraduate Legal Studies Program. We seek a full-time employee from a U.S. graduate or undergraduate institution of higher education, or from a government agency, to fill an 11-month position as a visiting faculty member for academic year 2024-25. We are particularly interested in welcoming a visiting professor who will teach the Law Department’s Principles of Negotiation course.
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September: Allostasis
The word of the month for September is “allostasis.” A simple definition for allostasis is “achieving stability through change.”
Not by resisting change, and not in spite of change.
Last week, Brad Stulberg published an opinion piece in the New York Times called “Stop Resisting Change.” Stulberg explains that in the 1980s, neuroscientist Peter Sterling and biologist Joseph Eyer suggested that after experiencing change/disorder/disruption, healthy baselines do not necessarily return to their original starting points but instead may end up somewhere new:
The brain is at its best when it is constantly rewiring itself and making new connections — what…
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Training your mediator bot

I bet you didn’t know that you need to train your mediator bot.
This didn’t occur to me until I read this Washington Post article about biases in artificial intelligence (AI) apps.
The article includes eight (!) references to bot training.
In my post, Avatar Mediation, I speculated about a future market for mediation bots. Mediation is supposed to be unbiased. So we need to train our bots well.
The first part of this post discusses the nature and causes of bot biases.
The second part analyzes the significance of the editor’s framing of the story in its headline,…
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Not a Restorative Justice Process
Several of us here at indisputably have been struck by a story that was reported in last Sunday’s NY Times, The Instagram Account That Shattered a California High School – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
A high school student in Albany, California started a private Instagram account to post what he said was “edgy” content—but was in reality disturbing and violent racist statements and imagery (for example nooses directed at pictures of African American students). As the NY Times reported, the account had “barely a dozen followers.” But, once it was discovered, by a student who was one of the…
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Gratitude Really Is Good for You
The New York Times published an encouraging article, Gratitude Really Is Good for You. Here’s What the Science Shows. Here are some excerpts.
Giving, receiving and even witnessing gratitude can improve your well-being, especially during difficult times. . . .
To date, numerous studies have found that having a grateful outlook, “counting one’s blessings” and expressing gratitude to others can have positive effects on our emotional health as well as on interpersonal and romantic relationships. . . .
But “feeling it is only half the equation,” said Philip Watkins, a professor of psychology at Eastern Washington University and the…
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Comings and Goings – 2023 edition
The past academic year was another big one for lateral moves, and this upcoming year looks to be a good one for hiring as at least 5 schools (maybe more?) have ads out mentioning DR as an area where they are looking. With the Next Gen Bar Exam looming in the not too distant future, it would not be surprising if we were to see many more entry-level hires and lateral moves going forward. And, as usual, it’s likely that I have missed someone who deserves to be on this list. If you know of someone who should be mentioned,…
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What a Tangled Web
The New York Times headline, Trump’s Legal Team Is Enmeshed in a Tangle of Possible Conflicts, is a gross understatement – and that was before the indictment in Georgia.
According to the article, “Former President Donald J. Trump’s growing cast of lawyers is marked by a web of overlapping interests encompassing witnesses, co-defendants and potential targets.”
Evan Corcoran, a lawyer who accompanied former President Donald J. Trump to court this week for his arraignment on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election, has given crucial evidence in Mr. Trump’s other federal case – the one accusing him of…
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