Tuesday, May 18, 2021

Tying it All Together: Creating Purpose-Built Infrastructures to Address Inter-bubble Conflicts

By Patrick Maxwell ‘21   To wrap up this blog series, let’s think back to the first entry of this series, and the concept of “conflict resolution infrastructure” that was introduced there. Conflict resolution infrastructure is the set of processes, decision rules, specialists, and sources of truth that govern how a conflict is managed—and as… More

Tuesday, May 4, 2021

When Norms Collide, Part 4: Interpersonal and National Inter-Bubble Conflicts—Two Stories

By Patrick Maxwell ‘21    The next entries of this blog series will focus on examples of inter-bubble conflicts from real life—and how those conflicts came to some kind of successful resolution. In this post, we’ll examine two vignettes of inter-bubble conflict. The first example is an interpersonal conflict, returning to the world of QAnon and conspiracy theories that we first referenced… More

Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Dispute Systems Design Info Session for HLS Students

This information session brought together current Dispute Systems Design Clinic students—to talk about the skills they’ve harvested from working with real-world clients through the clinic—as well as alums, who reflect on how their clinic experience helped them discern and inform their professional path and work in the world. This info session was held for Harvard… More

Thursday, March 11, 2021

Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program Releases Report on a New Safety Response System for the City of Boston

The Boston Police Department routinely responds to calls for service involving mental health, homelessness, substance use, traffic incidents, and nonviolent neighborhood or domestic disputes. In the face of nationwide racial disparities in public safety practices, many have advocated for the ability to seek help in addressing these issues without relying entirely on the police. In June… More

Wednesday, January 27, 2021

The Risk—and Relief—in Calls for Unity

President Biden ran on a campaign of unity, “restoring the soul of our nation.” These calls often resembled a pastor’s sermon more than policymaker’s plan, and suggested that division was not a symptom, but instead a harm in and of itself. . . . In President Biden’s view, it seems that division itself is what needs to be overcome. But how? Does his vision of unity include those who stormed the Capitol, or the lawmakers who refuse to denounce them? How do we achieve unity when the current moment also requires an unambiguous rejection of forms of violence? Is his unity a moral aspiration, or a political project? If it is the latter, how do we implement it?… More

Wednesday, September 23, 2020

Three Ways of Looking at Dispute Resolution

Former HNMCP Clinical Instructor and Harvard Law School Lecturer on Law Andrew Mamo ’14 has published “Ways of Looking at Dispute Resolution” in the Wake Forest Law Review.… More

Monday, May 4, 2020

Can Dispute Systems Design be “Rapid-Response”?

Dispute systems design, when done well, emphasizes thoughtful, intentional engagement with stakeholders in order to develop robust conflict management systems. Is this approach useful during an acute crisis? A few days ago, a friend who works in a state court system sent the following email to me and a number of colleagues in the field of… More

Thursday, February 6, 2020

Engaging Deep Differences Online

Originally published on the Indisputably blog as part of the Theory-of-Change Symposium . You can find all the submissions for the symposium here.   As we approach the next election, we continue to confront important challenges about engaging across deeply felt differences. Our country remains polarized, and many feel disconnected from those whose views differ… More

Monday, April 30, 2018

Principled Negotiations and Complex Peace Processes: Reflections on connecting theory to practice—Part II

In the first installment of our reflection on the pedagogy of principled negotiation, we began our consideration of the practicalities of applying theories of interest-based negotiation to peacebuilding.

We turn now to the concept of negotiation process. … More

Thursday, December 21, 2017

The Perils of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness

Amidst the many allegations of workplace harassment that have come to light in the past few months, the saga of former judge Alex Kozinski may be of particular interest to lawyers. In the case of Kozinski, the allegations stretch back over decades, an “open secret” never explicitly aired. What should dispute resolution professionals take away… More

Friday, May 26, 2017

To Dialogue: Moving Towards Conversation About Refugee Resettlement in Maine

A team of Harvard Law School Negotiators students worked throughout the Spring 2017 semester with Catholic Charities Maine on a new project entitled, “To Dialogue: Moving Towards Conversation About Refugee Resettlement in Maine”.… More

Friday, March 10, 2017

Former DOJ mediator describes ‘active’ neutrality, at HLS symposium

This article first appeared on Harvard Law Today Within minutes of the Aug. 10, 2014, fatal police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri of an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown, a civil rights group alerted the U.S. Justice Department’s Community Relations Service, or CRS. Four days later, President Barack Obama ’91 publicly announced that CRS was on… More

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Join Bob Bordone for Executive Education at the Harvard Negotiation Institute

This June, 2017, join Prof. Bob Bordone and a roster of world-class faculty at the Harvard Negotiation Institute, an executive education offering from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School. From structuring high-stakes deals and mediating complex disputes to resolving intractable problems and strengthening difficult relationships, the Harvard Negotiation Institute courses are the perfect choice… More

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program (HNMCP) 10th Anniversary Symposium Explores a Dynamic Field and Growing Impact

On November 5, 2016, the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program (HNMCP) at Harvard Law School celebrated its 10th Anniversary with a public symposium that was both retrospective and prospective, addressing the clinic’s foundational focus on dispute systems design, as well as looking at the role of facilitation and political dialogue. The symposium was hosted… More

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Building Capacity Without Losing Capacity: Legal Change and Dispute Resolution in Bhutan

In the spring of 2016 HNMCP engaged with the newly forming Jigme Singye Wangchuck School of Law (JSW Law) to examine the practices of local, traditional dispute resolvers, and to help JSW Law think through how formal judicial institutions, which have been the subject of large-scale capacity building initiatives following Bhutan’s transition to democracy in 2008, can complement, rather than supplant, traditional… More