University of Missouri-Columbia

Integrating Dispute Resolution Into First Year Law School Curriculum

Purpose of Project:

This project assumes that most American legal education is based upon a narrow, adversarial view of human relations and of the lawyer's role. This view contributes to the widespread public dissatisfaction with lawyers and to the delay, expense and stress often associated with litigation. The adversarial prospective pervades standard first year law courses that otherwise dwell on the study of appellate court opinions, thereby reinforcing the false notion that most disputes are resolved by going to court.

A major goal of this project was to give law students a more realistic picture of how good lawyers function and to add less adversarial perspectives to their legal education. To this end, law professors of first year students incorporated alternative ways of resolving disputes, such as negotiation, mediation, arbitration, mini-trials and summary jury trials, into all five standard first year courses (contracts, civil procedure, criminal law, torts, and property).

A final program goal-development of a dispute resolution textbook, along with an instructor's manual of classroom simulations and exercises-was the means to this end.

Innovative Features:

The project's basic idea of integrating dispute resolution into standard first year law courses breaks new ground in legal education. Students read about a given dispute resolution process, such as negotiation, participate in related exercises or simulations, and analyze them in class. Project staff assert that very few law schools, in their first year courses, single out dispute resolution processes for study.

Law professors at Missouri attended day-long training sessions on how to incorporate and teach this material within their regular courses. The project director helped each professor design and test classroom activities and made use of advanced law students as classroom observers and providers of feedback.

To support other institutions in teaching dispute resolution alternatives, project personnel developed a textbook and an instructor's manual, both of which could be used in a variety of course settings. Thus faculty members could adopt the materials without having to change the basic nature of their courses. An additional innovation involved 24 professors at 14 law schools as collaborators in the preparation of exercises for the instructor's manual. This project was, in one evaluator's words, "nothing less than an effort to develop a unifying theme among the . . . disparate courses of the first year curriculum, and . . . an audacious departure from tradition."

Evaluation:

Process evaluation was built into many project activities. In the production of the course book, several law students, in addition to law professors and outside consultants, critically reviewed the manuscript. Likewise, the authors used feedback from law students (first year as well as advanced) about the dispute resolution exercises in the manual.

A number of outside consultants were engaged as evaluators: a legal sociologist at the end of the first grant year surveyed and interviewed students and faculty; and two prominent law professors, at the end of the second grant year, reviewed the book manuscripts and also interviewed students and faculty.

Impact or Changes From Grant Activities:

The program is now fully integrated into all first year standard law courses at Missouri. Beginning students are exposed to 8-10 dispute resolution segments during their first year.

Project staff were not able to document student learning, because dispute resolution exercises were not separately graded. Evaluators did document a high degree of acceptance of the idea of lawyer as problem solver and cited a heightened awareness of alternative dispute resolution, its place and application.

Obviously, it is not yet possible to gauge the influence of this approach to legal education on these students' later behavior. Realistically, the actual pressures of law practice and the perceptions of already practicing lawyers may make it difficult for these students to use alternative dispute resolution often. However, reasons for optimism do exist. Teachers and students report dispute resolution issues emerging in advanced courses and in a growing number of seminar papers.

The entire law school faculty at Missouri has become familiar with alternative methods of dispute resolution and expresses pride in this project, which has attracted much attention in the law school community. The first year teachers fairly regularly conducted the exercises they prepared as well as those contributed by faculty at other law schools. The Missouri law school dean was heavily involved in developing, promoting, and implementing the project, and remains one of its staunchest advocates.

The project effected a significant change in this law school's first year curriculum. Beginning students now routinely learn about alternative methods of resolving disputes. Although outside evaluators concluded the program is a bold innovation in legal education and applauded the uncommon collaboration among different law schools, the program continues to require coordination of faculty, of dispute resolution exercises, and of classroom activities each semester. It cannot yet claim a momentum of its own, independent of the project director.

What Activities Worked Unexpectedly?

The project's book, Dispute Resolution and Lawyers, has been used heavily in advanced dispute resolution courses in about 50 law schools. In at least six schools, it has been used in the first year legal research and writing courses.

What Activities Didn't Work?

Generally, the difficulty in persuading substantial numbers of traditional law professors to depart from accustomed methods was underestimated. For example, some resisted the notion of devoting regular course time to dispute resolution exercises since they subtract from time available for instruction in the established subject matter. Some feared losing control of their classes when using simulations. Some students didn't take the resolution segments seriously because they were ungraded.

The project director assumed that dispute resolution perspectives would spread beyond the specific activities designed for the first year to advanced law school courses. This has not yet happened at Missouri.

What Do You Have To Send Others And How Do They Get It?

Copies of the books resulting from this project are available from:
West Publishing Company
Law School Division
50 W. Kellogg Blvd.
St. Paul, MN 55164-0526L.

Riskin and J. Westbrook, Dispute Resolution and Lawyers (hardcover and abridged editions, 1987);
Instructor's Manual with Exercises and Problem Material, 1987.

Copies of an article appearing in the March 1990 Journal of Legal Education are available from:
Leonard Riskin, Director
Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution
University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law
Columbia, MO 65211
314-882-2052

L. Riskin and J. Westbrook, "Integrating Dispute Resolution into the Standard Law School Curriculum: The Missouri Plan. "

What Has Happened To The Program Since The Grant Ended?

Consistent with the project's overall goal, dispute resolution is now taught throughout the first year law curriculum at Missouri. Currently, program discussions center around producing demonstration videotapes to accompany resolution exercises and expanding program coverage to include advanced courses. The school has opened a mediation center for law students to observe and conduct real mediations. In the long run, the program hopes to broaden its perspective toward both prevention and resolution of disputes. The program has received another FIPSE grant to make these demonstration videotapes and to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the project.

Saint Louis University Law School has adopted the abridged course book for use in its first year sections, as have Pepperdine, William and Mary, Washington and Lee, the University of Dayton, and six other law schools. There will probably be other adoptions in coming semesters.

Sixteen professors at 12 other law schools are using some of the exercises in their first year courses, although they have not adopted the textbook. The hardcover edition was adopted for use in advanced courses in about 15 law schools during the first year it was available. During 1988-89, the books were used in 55 different law schools. The course book has received two very favorable reviews in the law press. One reviewer called it "an outstanding contribution to the field of dispute resolution . . . and of the few works that provide a basis for integration of subject matter with the standard curriculum.... "

The books produced by the program and the publicity surrounding it have helped faculty elsewhere learn more about dispute resolution and how it may be integrated into their courses. Increasingly, large law firms across the country are developing and publicizing expertise in dispute resolution, and a number of similarly oriented books will soon be on the market. The project director and other U.C. law professors have made about a dozen presentations on the project to large gatherings of law professors.

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