Recent Posts
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Tuesday, August 29, 2017
In an Ideal World
By Rosalind Cresswell In an interview with Nate Szyman and Rob Petito—as part of a project with the Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program and sponsored by the Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration (MOPC) on a statewide “community mediation visioning process”—I remember being asked what community mediation would look like in an ideal world. The… More
Friday, August 18, 2017
A Call to Dialogue After Charlottesville
by Andrew Mamo As someone working in the field of dispute resolution and committed to the importance of dialogue, I find it difficult to know where to go with the events in Charlottesville. There were actual neo-Nazis in Charlottesville participating in a rally in which someone was killed. The wrongness of white supremacist ideology… More
Thursday, August 17, 2017
When Does Silence Speak Louder Than Words?
by Tracy Blanchard I am a trained mediator. I’ve studied Non-Violent Communication (NVC). I’m training to be a spiritual director. I work as the Administrator at the Negotiation & Mediation Clinic at Harvard Law School with a team of people who think creatively and deeply about things like active listening and understanding the motivations… More
Thursday, August 10, 2017
On Being Curious
by Adriel Borshansky ’15 I parked my car outside of Buchenwald concentration camp late in the afternoon and took a deep breath. This time, having already visited Dachau, I was more ready to actually absorb historical information about the atrocities that occurred in this space. I opened up the audio guide that I had… More
Thursday, June 8, 2017
Negotiating Climate Change: The Perils of “America First”
by Robert C. Bordone Much ink has been spent lamenting President Trump’s decision to withdraw from The Paris Agreement. Political leaders, scientists, environmental policy experts, and even U.S. companies have condemned Trump’s move. More than just promoting ecological and humanitarian disaster, President Trump’s decision hurts the United States from a diplomatic and negotiation perspective. … More
Monday, May 22, 2017
In Support of Our Art
by Adriel Borshansky This year’s art contest at the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program brought in over fifty submissions from Harvard Law School, the greater Boston area, and around the world. We received paintings, sculptures, photographs, and poems—some from seasoned artists and some from individuals who were trying their hand at an art… More
Monday, April 3, 2017
Why I Will Take a Trump Supporter to Coffee
I began to rethink my own involvement during this administration. I will not stop going to protests, or writing letters to senators, but I will also turn the other cheek and, engage with those who cause me outrage. The centerpiece of the average Trump supporter’s belief is an inability to empathize deeply with the plight of others. I will engage genuinely and openly with those who make my face flush – and that will be my resistance.… More
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Finding Your Voice: What is Your “Call”?
by Robert C. Bordone The present moment is one of deep uncertainty and fear for many in our local Harvard Law School community and in the nation and world-at-large. There is, of course, the palpable fear that students of color, immigrant students, LGBTQ students, and Muslim students face as the tides of xenophobia… More
Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Syllabus for “Political Dialogue in Polarizing Times: Election 2016” Now Publicly Posted
The Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program (HNMCP) has made its new syllabus on political dialogue publicly available on the Berkman Center’s class tools website, H20. Inspired by the success of our reading group on Political Dialogue in Polarizing Times: Election 2016, HNMCP Director and Clinical Professor Bob Bordone ‘97 and Assistant Director and Lecturer Rachel Viscomi ’01… More
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Morning in America: November 9, 2016
by Heather Kulp First published on Harvard Law Today You roll out of bed, seeking coffee and your morning news. Groggily, you realize it’s Wednesday morning, November 9—the day after the presidential election. S/he’s won. You may be thrilled. You may not be. Either way, you have to go to work/the dinner table/a church potluck/your… More
Friday, November 4, 2016
YNMCP and Labor Conditions at A&M Apparel: A New Dispute Systems Design Role Play
By Alonzo Emery First published on the HLS Case Studies Blog In a new negotiation role play from the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program (HNMCP), the world’s leading clothing company is a client in need of dispute systems design. A&M Apparel, headquartered in the prosperous United Commonwealth, relies on supply chain factories across the… More
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
The Listening Room, Episode 1: A Seat at the Table
From a public school to negotiations over the Iran nuclear program to a neighborhood in Baltimore, group decisionmaking is inevitably impacted by who’s at the table—and who’s not. In this inaugural episode of “The Listening Room,” we hear about three very different experiences trying to get individuals to the negotiating table—and what happened once they… More
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
The Listening Room: An Introduction
Conflict, as a topic, is conducive to stories. Conflict forms the heart of a good novel; it gives color and character to an otherwise placid movie; it even features heavily in the lyrics to our favorite songs. Similarly, the ways we handle conflict in our lives or work constitute narratives—sometimes, those narratives tell of dramatic… More
Monday, May 16, 2016
Reimagining the Presidential Debates
During the last election cycle, I wrote an op-ed with my colleague, Heather Kulp, noting that the so-called Presidential debates had devolved into something more akin to football matches. With the emphasis on entertainment, strict time clocks, and ubiquitous analysis of who “won,” the prospect of any thoughtful discussion of the issues seemed to fade… More
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
The Ground of Identity
There have been at least 13 iterations of this piece. Last December, the first draft began— In November, someone placed strips of black tape over the portraits of tenured black professors at Harvard Law. Today, as I read “Between the World and Me,” Ta-Nehisi Coates told me, “hate gives identity.”1 I was, at first, unsure whether… More
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
May the Force Be With You
I love negotiation theory. In fact, I hope to make a long career out of teaching others how to negotiate effectively. But every time someone asks me about my future profession, their eyes glaze over as I describe how one can use empathy and self-awareness to get what he or she wants. I have discovered… More
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Facilitation Challenges: Navigating the Space Between Neutrality and Identity
As a brand-new student in the art of facilitation, one of my first lessons was in the importance of maintaining neutrality on the substance of discussion and, relatedly, in the value of calling in an outside facilitator to a sensitive discussion. The theory underlying this concept is that, by remaining neutral as to content, the… More
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Resetting Broken Bones: Real Talk at Harvard Law School
As long as we are on earth, the love that unites us will bring us suffering by our very contact with one another, because this love is the resetting of a Body of broken bones. Even saints cannot live with saints on this earth without some anguish, without some pain at the differences that come between them. … More
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Reflections on Real Talk: An Introduction
By Robert C. Bordone, Jon Hanson, Jacob Lipton, and Sam W. Straus HNMCP is proud to announce the launch of a new series on our blog sharing the experiences of facilitators in our new student initiative, Real Talk. In fall 2015 the Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program (HNMCP),in collaboration with the Systemic Justice… More
Monday, February 22, 2016
Scalia and Ginsburg: The Likeliest of Friendships
by Robert C. Bordone & Sara del Nido Budish For many years, articles in the media have marveled at the “unlikely friendship” between Justices Scalia and Ginsburg. Indeed, the pair has been dubbed “the odd couple” (by Justice Scalia himself). With Justice Scalia’s passing, there has been a new wave of commentary touting this… More