Archive for the 'Teaching' Category

Understanding Interests Means Adding Value

I told my wife that I wanted to do the following exercise with my 50-person ADR survey class at New York Law School:

“Find a partner and face each other.  Touch your palms together about face-level and then grasp each other’s hand.  The person who can get the other person’s hand past their own ear five times in the next fifteen seconds gets a hundred bucks.”

My wife’s response:  “Don’t do that!  They’ll hurt each other!  Say ‘No hurting’ or ‘Be careful of each other’ or something like that!” Read more »

ADR in Italy

My class in International Commercial Dispute Resolution at New York Law School is now finished, and each student was required to prepare a paper on a related topic of their choice.  All were good, happily, and some students wrote on topics that readers of this blog may find useful.  With their permission, I will post a few of them here over the next few weeks.

This paper, by Michael Martuscello, surveys the current state of business arbitration and mediation in Italy.  Of the many curious aspects he discusses, it is noteworthy that the Italian legislature, not the courts or the business community, seems to be the main driver of ADR and the main advocate for encouraging its use by business.  It is particularly interesting that, in compliance with the EU Directive, the legislature is ramping up a series of requirements that should make a big impact on the way business disputes are handled in the future — resulting perhaps in mediation rather than arbitration being the most practical way to address problems in a deal involving an Italian counterparty.

The text of the paper follows.  Please note that the citations appear as Endnotes. Read more »

ADR Center’s Conference Is A Big Success

The word is that folks don’t travel for conferences any more, that expenses are cut and attendance is down.  You wouldn’t have known it by stopping by the 2009 Annual Conference of the Center for Alternative Dispute Resolution in Greenbelt, Maryland, June 18-19. Read more »

Teaching International Dispute Resolution

This Fall I will be an Adjunct Professor at New York Law School, teaching International Commercial Dispute Resolution.  I have outlined what I want to present, and I’m now reviewing casebooks and other materials to create a detailed syllabus.  It’s fun and challenging — and also quite thought-provoking! Read more »