Hofstra Law's Professor Baruch Bush's primary scholarly and teaching interests are in the areas of mediation and alternative dispute resolution (ADR). He is one of the originators of the transformative approach to mediation, as explained in his best-selling book, The Promise of Mediation (1994, 2d ed. 2005), which has been called one of the most influential works on mediation in the last decade. He has practiced, taught and written about mediation for nearly 30 years, authoring over two dozen books, articles and chapters on mediation and ADR; and he is regularly featured as a lecturer and trainer at conferences, seminars and workshops around the world. Professor Bush is a Founding Fellow and President of the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation, Inc., at Hofstra Law School. The Institute is a nonprofit research center devoted to furthering the understanding and practice of mediation and related processes.
Over the past two decades, Professor Bush has directed several major research projects on mediation, and he has served as consultant on dispute resolution to state court and school systems and to the Hewlett Foundation's Conflict Theory Center Program. He led a team that helped the United States Postal Service design a nationwide program for mediating workplace conflicts.
At Hofstra, Professor Bush teaches several courses on mediation and ADR, including a survey course on ADR, seminars on mediation and negotiation, and a skills course in mediation practice. He also regularly teaches the first-year course in Torts. He is a graduate of Stanford Law School, where he was a member of the Order of the Coif, and of Harvard University, from which he graduated magna cum laude and where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He also worked as a Research Fellow at the Center for Comparative Judicial Studies in Florence, Italy, and at Yale Law School.
