Conflict Resolution Day Efforts

Disputes are an inevitable part of life. Family, workplace, community all occasionally present conflicts. 

In our culture, many of us default to the cliché “I’ll see you in court!”  

Mediation offers a better way to address most conflicts in any context and it is having a renaissance driven in part by long court backlogs made worse during the pandemic. The problem is many people need to know more about mediation to make it their first consideration to resolve conflict. 

These reasons are why this year the American Bar Association Dispute Resolution Section and Mediate.com are developing a grass-roots outreach program to help members of our local communities understand how mediation can be a better way to resolve conflict. This is building up to Conflict Resolution Day, Oct 17, 2024. 

We all know the benefits of mediation. Now we need your help to convey that knowledge to the general public. We are encouraging as many practitioners as possible to commit to doing a presentation on mediation to a local community group, or just to share mediation ideas with their friends or social media. There is a list of typical community organizations on this website, but any gathering will do. There, we would like practitioners to explain what mediation is, how it differs from arbitration, explain the benefits of mediation over litigation, and provide examples that encourage audience members to first consider mediation before filing a lawsuit.  

Another idea is to try to place an article or opinion/editorial in a local paper, business journal, organization newsletter or other media designed to reach a group of people.  

To help you with these efforts, we have included some resources on this website. There is a list of typical local organizations, some examples of articles you could use for inspiration and one drafted by AI you can edit and use for yourself. We have even provided an example canva presentation for you to edit and use as you wish.  

If you have done similar outreach in the past, and are willing to share your work product for others to adapt for their use, please send those materials directly to Clare Fowler, at [email protected] .  

As you get things set up – whether a presentation or a publication – let us know here. We want to keep track of how much we can accomplish when we all work together on behalf of the profession.   

Gary Doernhoefer

Gary Doernhoefer graduated from the University of Chicago School of Law in 1984 and went in-house after a few years as a litigator.  Most of his career was spent in the airline and travel industry serving as in-house counsel for American Airlines, founding general counsel for Orbitz, the travel website,… MORE