Keynote Speakers
Colin Rule
Using Technology to Find a Way in the Woods: The Brave New World of Online Dispute Resolution
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More than 100 million disputes are filed online each year around the world, and the number is growing every month. As our society becomes increasingly wired, disputants are expecting that their neutrals will be able to use the latest information and communication technologies to get their issues resolved as quickly and effectively as possible. Computer mediated communication changes many aspects of the dispute resolution process, and online interaction offers both advantages and disadvantages for dispute resolution.
In this innovative session, ODR Pioneer Colin Rule, eBay and PayPal’s first Director of Online Dispute Resolution and author of Online Dispute Resolution for Business, will walk through both the powers and pitfalls of marrying technology and ADR. Attendees will hear about best practices across the industry, the latest ODR tools, and even get a chance to confront the challenges of designing and implementing online dispute resolution systems. Rest assured non-geeks are welcome: no prior technology experience is required. But if you’re interested in learning how to apply these new tools and techniques that will likely be mainstream for ADR in the not-too-distant future, then this session is for you.
Colin Rule is the CEO of Modria, the worldwide leader in designing and implementing online dispute resolution systems to reinforce trust on the internet. Colin has worked at the intersection of technology and conflict resolution for the last two decades. He is currently Co-Chair of the Advisory Board of the National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution at UMass-Amherst and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School. From 2003 to 2011 he served as eBay and PayPal's first director of Online Dispute Resolution, designing and implementing systems that now resolve more than 60 million disputes each year.
Colin is the author of Online Dispute Resolution for Business, published by Jossey-Bass in September 2002. He has presented and trained around the world for organizations including the U.S. Department of State, UNCITRAL, the International Chamber of Commerce, and the CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution, as well as teaching at UMass-Amherst, Stanford, Southern Methodist University, and Hastings College of the Law. He has written and been interviewed extensively about the Internet since 1999, with columns and articles appearing in ACResolution, Consensus, Dispute Resolution Magazine, and Peace Review. He holds a master's degree from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in conflict resolution and technology, a B.A. in peace studies from Haverford College, and he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Eritrea from 1995-1997.
Bernie Mayer
Competition and Cooperation: Seeing the Forest and the Trees
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The story of the human experience is defined by how we have handled the essential but contradictory challenges of competition and cooperation. The origin of this challenge exists in the earliest stages of life’s evolution and continues to this day. Our future on this planet is dependent on how we learn to handle this challenge. Today’s public culture is not encouraging. We do not seem able to compete with respect or cooperate when essential. As conflict specialists, we work on this issue every day of our professional lives. But we often fall into a dualistic trap, believing we have to choose between cooperation and competition. In fact, competition is an essential feature of cooperation and cooperation of competition. I will address how we can understand what we do in terms of life’s most fundamental challenge and how in return we can offer the insights and skills of conflict intervention to changing the public culture so that our most serious conflicts are address in a wise and more courageous manner.
Bernie Mayer, Ph.D., Professor, Werner Institute for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution, Creighton is an internationally-recognized leader in the field of conflict resolution. Bernie has facilitated many complex and controversial environmental conflicts, commercial and organizational disputes, interpersonal conflicts, public decision-making processes, and has an extensive background in family mediation as well. Bernie is a founding partner of CDR Associates, a pioneering conflict intervention firm, located in Boulder, Colorado. He is also on the faculty of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at Notre Dame University. He has provided consultation, mediation, facilitation and training for many federal, state and local agencies in the US and Canada and has extensive international experience in setting up dispute resolution programs and working on complex issues such as ethnic relations, conflicts between governments, corporations, and non-governmental organizations, and community and family disputes. Bernie is the author of many books and articles including The Dynamics of Conflict Resolution: A Practitioner's Guide; Beyond Neutrality: Confronting the Crisis in Conflict Resolution, and Staying With Conflict: A Strategic Approach to Ongoing Disputes Both Beyond Neutrality and Staying With Conflict were named as the outstanding book of the year by the CPR International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution.
Michelle LeBaron
Mediation, Maps and Mysteries: Have Mediators Lost Their Way in the Forest?
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Have mediators lost their way in the trees? In this keynote address, longtime scholar/practitioner Michelle LeBaron will examine recent developments in the field through the lenses of the four elements always present in the forest. Fire illuminates questions about motivating passions, central values and effectiveness of mediation. How do contemporary mediation practices match parties’ needs and aspirations, and what new ideas are catching fire that could transform practice? Air reminds mediators that suppleness and responsiveness to change is an essential element of practice. How responsive are mediators to the needs of diverse and changing populations with whom they work? Water reveals the importance of emotions and of beauty. How emotionally fluent are mediation processes in increasingly structured settings? Earth keeps mediators practical; what are the short and long term effects of mediation in relation to fairness and durable change? This keynote address will include opportunities for TAM participants to reflect on their practices including how the four elements feature in their work.
Michelle LeBaron is a tenured professor at the UBC law faculty and is Director of the UBC Program on Dispute Resolution. She joined the Faculty of Law in 2003 after ten years teaching at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and the Women's Studies program at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. From 1990-1993, she directed the Multiculturalism and Dispute Resolution Project at the University of Victoria. Professor LeBaron has lectured and consulted around the world on cross-cultural conflict resolution, and has practised as a family law and commercial mediator. Her current research focuses on using expressive arts practices – particularly movement and dance –to intervene in disputes. She holds a JD from the University of British Columbia, an MA in Counseling Psychology from Simon Fraser University in Canada and a BA from Chapman University in California. She was called to the Bar of British Columbia in 1982 after articling at Campney and Murphy in Vancouver. Professor LeBaron is the author of several books including Bridging Troubled Waters, Bridging Cultural Conflict, and Conflict Across Cultures. Her new book, Dancing at the Crossroads, will be published in 2012 by the American Bar Association.
Keynote Speakers will also present the following workshops:
Intercultural Considerations in Mediation
Michelle LeBaron
Intercultural dynamics are part of every mediation whether or not the participants are members of visible minority groups. In this session, participants will enhance cultural fluency through experiential exercises and exploration of the cultural values embedded in dispute resolution processes. We will also explore how creativity can expand cultural fluency.
Dealing with Power and Communication in Long Term Conflicts
Bernie Mayer
Power is one of the two main currencies in conflict, communication is the other. It’s not whether people use power in conflict, but how that determines a course of a dispute. When people are involved in enduring conflicts, finding a way to use power constructively, effectively, and sustainably is essential to how a dispute unfolds over time. Along with developing effective approaches to the use of power, helping disputants find their most effective voice and developing durable channels of communication is a second key challenge for mediators and disputants alike. In this workshop, we will explore how conflict specialists can help disputants who are engaged in long term conflicts develop and use power effectively and build effective systems of communication. We will consider this in terms of specific cases and will look at how mediators, who are normally involved in short term interventions, can help disputants work on long term conflicts.
