The June Michigan Bar Journal was full of valuable analysis of alternative dispute resolutions issues, but you don’t need to wait for the next ADR special issue for more. In this column, I highlight some additional Michigan-focused resources followed by a selection of resources that practitioners and scholars in any jurisdiction may find useful.

MICHIGAN DISPUTE RESOLUTION JOURNAL

The Michigan Dispute Resolution Journal1 is published three times a year by the Alternative Dispute Resolution Section of the State Bar of Michigan. It features timely articles on ADR issues in Michigan and updates on arbitration and mediation case law along with section news and upcoming events. It is an excellent resource for anyone seeking to stay updated on ADR issues in Michigan.

MICHIGAN BAR JOURNAL SPECIAL ISSUES

In addition to the June 2024 issue, the February 2019, June 2015, and June 2010 issues of the Michigan Bar Journal2 were also curated by the Alternative Dispute Resolution Section. Some articles may be outdated, so be sure to check if the cases, court rules, and so on referred to are still good law. Some articles, though, are timeless, e.g. “Practical Tips for Taking the Mediation Road to the Intended Destination” by Sheldon J. Stark and Shon A. Cook from the February 2019 issue.3

MICHIGAN JUDGES GUIDE TO ADR PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE

Created in 2015 by the Office of Dispute Resolution within the State Court Administrative Office, this guide4 is intended for judges but is of relevance for practitioners as well. It includes an overview of different ADR processes; deeper dives into the facilitative, evaluative, and adjudicative ADR processes; and an exploration of the trial judge’s role in ADR. It includes citations to Michigan court rules and statutes throughout and closes with useful links to Michigan-specific ADR organizations and resources.

CIVIL PROCEEDINGS BENCHBOOK

Chapter 6 of this benchbook,5 titled “Trial Alternatives,” discusses, but is not limited to, ADR processes. It is not as thorough as the “Michigan Judges Guide to ADR Practice and Procedure” but is significantly more current; while the guide was published in 2015, the benchbook is regularly updated and was last revised about two weeks before this writing.

ICLE PUBLICATIONS

While the Institute of Continuing Legal Education doesn’t currently publish a book focused on ADR in Michigan, it has several book chapters, forms, checklists, and videos6 that ADR researchers will find useful. You’ll find chapters on ADR in the titles “Michigan Basic Practice Handbook;” “Michigan Civil Procedure;” “Employment Litigation in Michigan;” and “Michigan Family Law.” If you have an ICLE online resources account, you can browse and search across ADR-related material by selecting the Alternative Dispute Resolution practice area on the My Resources page.

NONJURISDICTIONAL ADR RESOURCES

You may already have a go-to general reference on ADR; if not, the Nutshell Series published by West Academic includes some great options. These compact volumes present concise, in-depth summaries of areas of law with thorough citations and extensive bibliographies. The series includes “Mediation in a Nutshell,” “Alternative Dispute Resolution in a Nutshell,” and “Legal Negotiation in a Nutshell.”7

The resources presented thus far have been practice-focused. For a crash course in ADR scholarship and its history, see “Discussions in Dispute Resolution: The Foundational Articles” edited by Art Hinshaw, Andrea Kupfer Schneider, and Sarah Rudolph Cole.8 This 2021 collection brings together 16 foundational articles in the areas of negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and dispute resolution public policy spanning the years from 1926 to 1997. Each article is followed by comments from four different scholars; some are from the original authors, reflecting on the article’s impact in the years following its publication. Each of the articles is classic in its own right, but collected and contextualized, they present a fascinating history of the study of dispute resolution and an orientation to the modern state of the field.

Resources abound for staying updated on ADR developments nationwide. The American Bar Association Dispute Resolution Section publishes its Dispute Resolution Magazine three times a year in addition to a monthly newsletter, Just Resolutions; the Resolutions podcast; and the Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution, which is the section’s official law journal. Some items are limited to section members, but articles from the magazine and newsletter can be accessed by all on the section’s website and the journal is available through HeinOnline, Westlaw, and Lexis.9

Beyond the ABA’s resources, the following three blogs each have a slightly different focus and are (as of this writing) regularly updated. The Program on Negotiation, part of the Harvard Law School blog, mostly posts negotiation advice but also covers negotiation-related news topics.10 JAMS ADR Insights, published by the major dispute resolution services provider JAMS, focuses on arbitration and mediation practice11 and posts original content as well as articles by JAMS staff published elsewhere which may otherwise require a subscription to view. Last but not least, if you’re interested in the intersection of ADR scholarship and practice, Indisputably is the blog for you.12 The list of contributors includes prominent ADR scholars from around the country, and posts include new publication highlights, musings on current events, calls for paper submissions, and information about upcoming conferences and programs.

CONCLUSION

I’ve aimed to gather resources here to meet a variety of needs and interests from the foundational works in the study of ADR to the latest updates on ADR processes in Michigan. But there’s always more. If these resources just aren’t answering your questions or if you’d like a deeper dive, a law librarian can always help you find more.