New Frontiers in ADR

The Center for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution (CNDR) invites you to join us for the latest group of speakers in our ongoing series exploring innovation and the future of dispute resolution!

This one-hour virtual, lunchtime series featured different speakers over the course of the 2020-21 school year at UC Law SF. This series is now completed. Recordings of past events can be found below.

Past Events

Grande Lum: Working on Community-Wide Reconciliation

October 14, 2020 at 12:00pm (PST)

Virtual Event

Meet the co-author of “America’s Peacemakers“, Grande Lum, Provost of Menlo College and former Director of Center for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution at UC Law SF. This book tells the story of a federal agency within the Department of Justice that assists and mediates in communities as they reconcile and recover from discrimination, hate crimes, and unrest based on issues like race and religion.

This behind-the-scenes story looks at how a small federal agency made a big difference in civil rights conflicts over the last half century. In this second edition of Resolving Racial Conflict: The Community Relations Service and Civil Rights, 1964–1989, Grande Lum continues Bertram Levine’s excellent scholarship, expanding the narrative to consider the history of the Community Relations Service (CRS) of the U.S. Department of Justice over the course of the last three decades. That the Trump administration has sought to eliminate CRS gives this book increased urgency and relevance.

Covered in this expanded edition are the post–9/11 efforts of the CRS to prevent violence and hate crimes against those perceived as Middle Eastern. Also discussed are the cross-border Elián González custody dispute and the notable tragedies of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, both of which brought police interaction with communities of color back into the spotlight.

Flyer with discount purchase code for the book here.

Provost Lum enjoys writing, teaching and working on issues that helps people and communities work together in more constructive ways. Prior to joining Menlo, he was Director of the Divided Community Project (DCP) at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law. Previously, Grande Lum was nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate in 2012 as the Director of the Community Relations Service (CRS), an agency within the Department of Justice. Before joining CRS, Grande Lum was a clinical professor at the UC Law SF, where he directed the Center for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution (CNDR).

John Lande: How to Combine “Positional” and “Interest-Based” Negotiation and “Facilitative” and “Evaluative” Mediation

October 28, 2020 at 12:00pm (PST)

Virtual Event

Dispute resolution theory says that there are two distinct models of negotiation and two major models of mediation.  People often refer to a process or practitioner with one of these labels, as if they are mutually exclusive.  In reality, they are not.  Practitioners would do well to understand that these techniques really are complementary and often are used in the same case.

In this talk, Professor John Lande will describe how practitioners can combine these supposedly inconsistent models based on the framework his new book, Litigation Interest and Risk Assessment: Help Your Clients Make Good Litigation Decisions, co-authored with Michaela Keet and Heather Heavin.

Learn more about the book here, and find a flyer with discount purchase code here.

John Lande is the Isidor Loeb Professor Emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Law and former director of its LLM Program in Dispute Resolution.  He has received numerous awards for his work.  He earned his J.D. from the UC College of Law, San Francisco and Ph.D in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  He began practicing law and mediation in California in 1980 and he directed a child protection mediation clinic in the 1990s.  The American Bar Association published his book, Lawyering with Planned Early Negotiation: How You Can Get Good Results for Clients and Make Money, and Litigation Interest and Risk Assessment: Help Your Clients Make Good Litigation Decisions (co-authored with Michaela Keet and Heather Heavin).  His website, where you can download his publications, is www.law.missouri.edu/lande. 

Susan Stone and David Cherniss: Restorative Justice & Its Evolution in Juvenile Justice

February 24, 2021 at 12:00pm (PST)

Virtual Event

What the future might hold for communities that invest in alternatives to traditional criminal justice practices?

Join CNDR for a conversation with Susan Stone and David Cherniss on their innovative past and present Restorative Justice programs in San Francisco and San Mateo, CA. With a focus on system design, integration, sustainability, we will explore the evolution of Restorative Practices in Juvenile Justice, and conclude with a conversation that envisions how courts and dispute resolution might look in a post-2020 world.

Susan Stone is a trainer in restorative justice practices for the San Francisco District Attorney’s Neighborhood Courts program. She has also conducted victim-offender conferencing and case management for the San Mateo Juvenile Probation Department and community dispute mediations for the Peninsula Conflict Resolution Center, the Department of Police Accountability, and led victim-offender workshops at San Quentin State Prison and Maguire Women’s Correctional Facilities (San Mateo County). From 1980 – 2005 Susan worked as a broadcaster, programmer, and union steward in public radio, a communication environment rich in diverse and (often!) dissenting parties.

David Cherniss is the former Senior Managing Attorney for the ADR and Legal Support Services Division of the Superior Court of California, County of San Mateo. He transitioned to the Court in 2001 following 20 years in private practice to develop the Victim/Offender Restorative Justice mediation program for the Juvenile division of the Superior Court. In 2005 he assumed management oversight for both the Delinquency and Dependency Juvenile Mediation Programs and continued to leverage and expand the services through innovative and collaborative community and agency partnerships and most importantly with a dedicated panel of trained community volunteers. The two programs have been recognized as models within the state and served as an example for visiting dignitaries and judicial officers from several countries around the world. The Programs have continued to evolve, adapt and successfully serve the Court and the community of San Mateo throughout the past 20 years.