Mediation and ADR: Insights from the Jewish Tradition

Two initial points will provide some context for these remarks. First, my primary professional involvement has been not in legal practice as such, but in alternative dispute resolution ( ADR ) and mediation, which has been my field of concentration over the last twenty-five years, both before and after coming to Hofstra Law School. Therefore, my comments will focus on how my view of this field has been affected by my religious tradition. Second, the perspective reflected in these comments grows out of my own particular experience in relation to the Jewish tradition. Specifically, my involvement in Jewish traditional life and thought dates not from childhood, but from considerably later in life, and it has proceeded through slow and somewhat painstaking study over the last few decades. Therefore, my interest in ADR was first of all the product of my experiences in secular study and work, beginning in law school, and then in practice, teaching, and scholarship. Only later, after that secular experience was already in place, did my knowledge of the Jewish tradition begin to grow. As it did, my perspective on mediation and ADR was confirmed, reinforced, and refined by the insights of that tradition. Thus, the comments I offer here are the product of a gradual growth in knowledge of Jewish tradition that has been powerfully supportive of my original, intuitive attraction to and interest in ADR and mediation