The ABA Section of Dispute Resolution Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work honors individuals whose scholarship has significantly contributed to the dispute resolution field.
Award Criteria
Nominations should address one or more of the following:
- Nominee has authored a scholarly publication or a body of work exhibiting excellence in research, writing, analysis.
- Nominee has introduced new concepts in dispute resolution.
- Nominee has embodied “scholarship in action” for a collective body of work that brings theory to practice in developing (for example) laws, uniform acts, codes of conduct, protocols, competitions, or new programs and services over a sustained period of time.
Nominations are due September 30, 2012.
Nominations must be submitted online. Click here for the online nominations form.
2012 Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work
Professor Frank E.A. Sander was selected as the recipient of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution’s Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work. This award honors individuals whose scholarship has significantly contributed to the dispute resolution field.
Professor Sander, the Bussey Professor Emeritus of Harvard Law School, began his scholarship in dispute resolution with an essay for the 1976 Pound Conference that suggested a broader role for courts in helping people resolve disputes. It was an idea later dubbed the “multi-door courthouse.” That insight not only stimulated implementation of Professor Sander’s idea but also attracted other scholars to join in building a new scholarly field of dispute resolution. Professor Sander and co-authors followed a few years later with the first major law school dispute resolution textbook, outlining in that book what might be the issues addressed in this new field. Intent on encouraging broader and more creative use of mediation and related processes, Professor Sander contributed frequently over the last thirty years to the scholarship of “change.” In fact, scholars watch for his next thoughtful musings about the “tailwinds” and “headwinds” in terms of achieving more constructive use of dispute resolution and his more recent “mediation receptivity index.” A dedicated mentor, Professor Sander encouraged and guided many of the field’s most outstanding scholars. He continues contributing in his “retirement” as co-author of a new law school textbook on dispute system design and a new – sixth – edition of his pioneering textbook.
2011 Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work
Presented to Carrie Menkel-Meadow
Professor Carrie Menkel-Meadow was selected as the recipient of the ’s first-ever Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work. This award honors individuals whose scholarship has significantly contributed to the dispute resolution field.
Professor Menkel-Meadow is the A.B. Chettle, Jr. Professor of Dispute Resolution and Civil Procedure at and Chancellor's Professor of Law at the of , . She is a tireless, prolific and influential researcher and writer. Roughly twenty five years ago Professor Menkel-Meadow first put forth the idea of the lawyer as problem solver, and its import is still transforming legal education and the legal profession to this day. More broadly, Professor Menkel-Meadow's extensive theoretical writings and efforts at practical reform have been simply prodigious. In addition to her written scholarship, she regularly teaches internationally, so her impact is truly global. Among her most recent works, Professor Menkel-Meadow has just completed, with Professors Lela Love, Andrea Schneider and Jean Sternlight, the second edition of one of the leading ADR texts, Dispute Resolution: Beyond the Adversarial Model (Aspen WoltersKluwer, 2011), with simulations, role-plays and soon to be published updated paperback versions of Negotiation, Mediation and Arbitration texts.
The Award was presented to Professor Menkel-Meadow during the Legal Educators Colloquium Luncheon on Saturday, April 16th, in Denver Colorado.
