Conflict Mgmt/Dispute Resolutn

This survey course focuses on the non-litigation processes of dispute resolution and their relationship to traditional mechanisms. It provides overviews, critical examinations and analyses of the application of ADR's three main processes of settling legal disputes without litigation-negotiation, mediation, and arbitration-as well as the issued raised as these processes are combined, modified and applied.

This course explores the various theories underlying and practices to mediation. The mediation process is organized into a series of stages, and basic mediation skills and techniques appropriate to each state are identified and cultivated. Simulations and experiential exercises provide students with an opportunity to develop proficiency as mediators and to rigorously analyze appropriate roles and behavior as mediators and advocates taking into account the legal, ethical and public policy issues surrounding the practice of mediation.

Based on findings from the social sciences, this course examines how individuals think about and relate to one another in the context of conflict. Students acquire a theoretical framework for understanding and assisting parties in conflict. Based on the psychology, this course examines the vehicle of communication in the context of conflict in various alternative dispute resolution processes and other conflict-driven interactions.

This course explores the growing trend toward the design, development and implementation of dispute resolution systems within and among public and private sector organizations: in employment, commercial, judicial, and public policy contexts. The course will examine the burgeoning field of dispute systems design in the new economy with focus on potential advantages and disadvantages of this approach to what arguably is the privatization of justice. Students will also be provided with a practical framework to apply dispute systems to design concepts in complex disputes across a variety of venues, with the opportunity to apply it to their own designated subject matter area.