The Eighth John A. Speziale ADR Symposium
 

“ADR in Hard Times:

Can Alternative Dispute Resolution

Maintain Access to Justice

When Resources Are Limited?”

Quinnipiac University School of Law

Hamden, CT

Friday, October 19, 2012

8:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

The Great Recession has affected everyone and everything, and ADR is no exception.  Our symposium will examine how hard times have changed the disputes brought to ADR processes, both court-annexed and private.  We will examine the way financial pressures affect ADR practice.  We will discuss what we have learned about efficiency, but also about minimum standards below which we put justice itself in jeopardy.  Finally, we’ll glean lessons from “hard times” that may improve access to justice in more typical economic times.

Keynote Speaker Ethan Katsh, Professor Emeritus of Legal Studies, University of Massachusetts, is Director of the National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution.  .

Professor Katsh is currently serving as principal dispute resolution consultant for the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS), a federal agency mandated to provide mediation in Freedom of Information Act disputes.  He is also assisting the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) in a study of disputes involving electronic medical records.  During the past year he served as the 2010-2011 Fulbright Distinguished Chair in the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Haifa (Israel).

Professor Katsh is a graduate of the Yale Law School and was one of the first legal scholars to recognize the impact new information technologies would have on law.  He has authored three books on law and technology: Law in a Digital World (Oxford University Press, 1995), The Electronic Media and the Transformation of Law (Oxford University Press, 1989), and, with Professor Janet Rifkin, Online Dispute Resolution: Resolving Conflicts in Cyberspace (2001).  His articles have appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the University of Chicago Legal Forum, and other law reviews and legal periodicals.  His pioneering scholarly contributions in the field of law and technology have been the subject of a Review Essay in Law and Social Inquiry.

Luncheon speaker Diane E. Kenty is director of the Office of Court Alternative Dispute Resolution in the Maine Administrative Office of the Courts, where she administers and serves on the statewide mediation rosters for family matters, small claims, land use/environmental/ disputes, and Superior Court civil litigation, as well as Superior Court rosters for early neutral evaluation and arbitration of civil cases.  Ms. Kenty teaches  Alternative Dispute Resolution and a Mediation Practicum as adjunct professor at the University of Maine School of Law.  She formerly served on the mediation rosters of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts and the Middlesex Multi-Door Courthouse in Cambridge, MA.  She was initially trained as a mediator at the Harvard Program of Instruction for Lawyers in 1991.

Other Participants Include:    

Jane G. Beddall, Dovetail Resolutions LLC

John T. Broderick, Dean, University of New Hampshire School of Law 

Jennifer G. Brown, Chair, ADR Symposium Planning Committee; Professor, Quinnipiac University School of Law

Frances Z. Calafiore, Law Office of Frances Z. Calafiore

Brenda Cavanaugh, Executive Director, Community Mediation Inc.

Steven Eppler-Epstein, Executive Director, Connecticut Legal Services, Inc. 

Timothy S. Fisher, President, Connecticut Bar Foundation; McCarter & English LLP Joseph D. Garrison, Garrison Levin-Epstein Chimes Richardson & Fitzgerald PC

Stephen Grant, Director of Juvenile and Family Services, State of CT, Judicial Branch

Elayne E. Greenberg, Professor, St. John's University School of Law

Jill I. Gross, Professor, Pace Law School

Hon. Robert L. Holzberg, Superior Court Administrative Judge, Middlesex

Carolyn W. Kaas, Associate Professor of Law, Quinnipiac University School of Law

Andrew S. Knott, Knott & Knott LLC

Hon. Linda K. Lager, Superior Court Chief Administrative Judge, Civil Division

William Logue, The Logue Group

Duncan R. MacKay, Deputy General Counsel, Northeast Utilities Service Company

Harry N. Mazadoorian, Commercial Arbitrator and Mediator, Distinguished Senior

Fellow at the Quinnipiac University School of Law Center on Dispute Resolution

Hon. Alan H. Nevas, Levett Rockwood P.C

Roberta Palmer, Program Manager, State of CT, Judicial Branch

Larry Peikes, Wiggin and Dana LLP

James K. Robertson, Jr., Carmody & Torrance LLP    

Brad Saxton, Dean, Quinnipiac University School of Law 

James F. Stapleton, Law Offices of James F. Stapleton

James H. Stark, Professor, University of Connecticut School of Law

The response form is below.  Please indicate your choice of breakout sessions on the response form.