In 1976, Chief Justice Warren Burger convened a national conference to examine how to make the justice system more responsive to the public. The Pound Conference paid tribute to legal scholar Roscoe Pound, who went on to serve as dean at Harvard Law School. Pound’s legendary 1906 speech at the American Bar Association, titled “The Causes of Popular Dissatisfaction with the Administration of Justice,” led to improvements in judicial administration and other justice system reforms, including enactment of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
At the Pound Conference, Chief Justice Burger reminded his audience that it is “up to us to demonstrate whether we will be able to adapt the basically sound mechanisms of our systems of law to new conditions.” Recommendations from the Pound Conference paved the way to what were then largely unfamiliar and underutilized tools for resolving disputes, including mediation, arbitration, and other forms of alternative dispute resolution.