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This article is modified slightly from For Researchers Only: The Word on a New, Hard-To-Get ADR Guideby Russ Bleemer (first published in Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation, December 1997. Please note that the Guide has since been republished as a more comprehensive -- and more public -- document. The new Guide is fully available to all interested persons.) A new handbook featuring short biographies of some of the nation's top alternative dispute resolution practitioners is designed to make them more easily accessible to ADR researchers. But don't start clearing space on your shelf. "A Researcher's Guide to Dispute Resolution Practitioners" is going to be the ADR equivalent of court-side L.A. Lakers seats—besides the money, you have to know someone or be someone to get one. Madison, Wis., dispute resolution consultant Christopher Honeyman, in the midst of a two-year research and development project begun last summer on the relationship between ADR theory and practice, has compiled the biographies, and is preparing to release the book next month. It is being published by the Hamline University School of Law's Dispute Resolution Institute in St. Paul, Minn. The volume groups the practitioners into 15 categories, including ADR experts in civil docket and commercial matters; community conflict; dispute systems design; and public policy mediation. In searching for experienced practitioners, Honeyman says that he wants to include only people "willing to field a call now and then . . .and to give some sort of priority to responding to a researcher." He explains that the prospect of broad distribution raised concerns among many of the roughly 75 practitioners to be included in the volume. Says Honeyman, "My original intent was to distribute it widely and put it on a Web site. But in some cases people who worked in parts of the field seen as particularly attractive to new mediators and students were concerned that they would get calls from a lot of people trying to break into the field and from people who haven't done their homework. They just don't have the time for that." So the current plan is to send the book to 125 "known" researchers as well as to the people who appear in it, Honeyman says. The 18 conflict resolution theory centers supported by the Hewlett Foundation, which is funding Honeyman's work, will each get a copy. And academics who request the book on an academic letterhead—indicating that it will be used for its intended purpose, ADR research—can get a copy for the $6 publishing cost. Honeyman suggests that the project is only a start—which may portend wider future distribution, provided those listed get comfortable with the idea. "Also, there are many more people who could be in a document like this," he says, "but that's what second editions are for." Honeyman outlined his project in a front-page Alternatives article last summer.
15 Alternatives 93 (July/August 1997). |
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