News
From Courtrooms to Common Ground: Training Brazilian Judges to Mediate Land Conflicts
By Deanna Pantín Parrish, Ana Carolina Riella, Tracy Blanchard (with drafting support from the Harvard AI Sandbox) On the outskirts of Paraná, a judge walks among rows of makeshift homes, listening to families describe the uncertainty of life under constant threat of eviction. Later, he meets with landowners, hearing their frustrations over idle property and…
Strengthening Environmental Peacebuilding Design in Somalia
Tanishk Goyal, Lynn Monzer, Abby Elder Access to indigenous seeds and freedom to share, trade, and distribute not only increases agricultural and economic security—thus reducing factors that lead to conflict—but also increases social ties within and across communities. Restricting the ability of individuals and communities to save, trade, and sell indigenous seeds can reduce biodiversity,…
The Wagner Group and Security Sector Reform
Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program (HNMCP) Clinical Instructor Lisa Dicker and former HNMCP student and current consultant with the Metropolitan Group Erin Bloom have just published their contribution to the Armed Groups and International Law (AGIL) blog’s “Wagner Symposium.” AGIL promotes information sharing and community building between individuals and organizations working on issues related…
Students revive historic competition honoring renowned contracts professor
When Joseph “Joey” Ravenna ’25 first arrived at Harvard Law School in the fall of 2022, he was intrigued by the plaques he saw in Langdell Hall honoring the winners of something called the Williston Negotiation & Contract Drafting Competition. There were several plaques, each with a decade’s worth of names dating back to the…
Faculty Snapshot: Rachel Viscomi
Recently Harvard Law School published interviews with a variety of professors whose work engages international actors and issues. Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program Director Rachel Viscomi spoke about international projects undertaken in the Dispute Systems Design Clinic. This interview was originally published on the HLS website. You’ve been involved in dispute systems design in…
Fast-Track Negotiations in Urgent Conflict
In the fall of 2024, Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program’s Lisa Dicker was in conversation with Mark Freeman, Founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Integrated Transitions, as part of the Program on Negotiation‘s Roger Fisher Speaker Series. The conversation was titled, “Rethinking the Negotiation Paradigm: Introducing “Fast-Track” Negotiation.” The two discussed the “fast track” model…
Sustaining Eviction Mediation Efforts “Post Pandemic”: Out of the Courtroom and Into Public Health?
by Deanna Pantín Parrish “Moving Day” by Nicolas Huk CC BY 2.0 via https://www.flickr.com/photos/128359034@N07/17233058042 This piece was originally published by the America Bar Association’s Dispute Resolution Magazine in April 2024. In 2016, I sat in a small conference room just off judge’s chambers, wedged between the parties of an eviction dispute so contentious the bailiff…
Student Spotlight: Torian Cook ’24
We are so excited to feature Torian Cook ’24 in our spring semester Student Spotlight. Torian has contributed to the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) community at Harvard Law School (HLS) throughout her time in here, holding multiple roles and leadership positions. Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program staffers Tracy Blanchard and Sara del Nido Budish…
‘It’s important to sing, even when it rains’
First published in Harvard Law Today There were just four weeks until Harvard Law School’s commencement ceremony, and Salomé Van Bunnen LL.M. ’24 was more than 7,000 miles away—in East Africa. But far from regretting missing a few of her final days in Cambridge, Salomé was in Tanzania celebrating putting into practice a semester of…
Finding Community with the Harvard Mediation Program
by Kate Strickland ’24 Originally published on the Harvard Law School website I started HLS in Fall 2020 which, as many will remember, meant that I was part of the class who spent our entire first year online due to the Covid pandemic. Unlike many of my peers, I found virtual law school had several…
Unlearning Silence
The Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program is thrilled to be able to present a conversation between Clinical Instructor and Lecturer on Law Morgan Michelle Franklin and HNMCP alum Elaine Lin Hering, the author of the forthcoming book Unlearning Silence: How to Speak Your Mind, Unleash Talent, and Live More Fully (Penguin, March 2024). Morgan…
Evictions can kill: how US communities are trying to break the cycle of violence
Image: Nito. Adobe Stock Education License. In a typical year, American landlords file 3.6m eviction cases. The process has been criticized as an “expedited, state sanctioned collection process for landlords.” Systemic injustices require systemic solutions. Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program Clinical Instructor Deanna Pantin Parrish co-authored an article on how alternative dispute resolution practices…
Harvard Dispute Systems Design Clinic contributes to the development of novel mediation approach in Brazil
A project by Harvard Law School’s Dispute Systems Design, or DSD, Clinic is helping address a pressing justice issue in Brazil — the forced removal of vulnerable communities from occupied land. This October, students and instructors from the Dispute Systems Design Clinic travelled to Paraná, Brazil to meet their client, the Brazilian National Council of…
The Season of Difficult Conversations?
And so begins the season of holiday parties & family gatherings. As we head into what can sometimes be challenging conversational waters at gatherings with friends and family, we’re brushing up on our “difficult conversations” skills by revisiting episode one of our podcast “Thanks for Listening: The Holiday Table.” Image by Tim Sackton CC BY-SA…
Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program Welcomes Jamie SaintPaul as Clinical Fellow
The Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program (HNMCP) is pleased to welcome Jamie SaintPaul to its staff. SaintPaul has been appointed to the role of Clinical Fellow at HNMCP, where she will work closely with students, supervising the student practice group HLS Negotiators and the Harvard Negotiation Law Review. She will also assist the Director…
HNMCP Attends AALS Dispute Resolution Works in Progress Conference
Last weekend, several faculty and staff from the Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program traveled down to New Haven, CT for the annual AALS ADR Works-in-Progress Conference. The conference was co-sponsored by the Quinnipiac University School of Law’s Center for Dispute Resolution and Yale Law School’s Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law.