Sheila Purcell

Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Mediation

2013-01-01

Awarded by the Mediation Society.

James Dennis Award for Justice in the Community

2012-01-01

Awarded by the San Mateo County Bar Association.

ABA Award

2010-01-01

Awarded by the American Bar Association for organizing the first-ever national Court ADR conference.

University of California Santa Cruz

B.A.

Social Anthropology and Environmental Studies

University of California Hastings College of the Law

J.D.

Law

Keynote Speaker

Discovery Enriched Curriculum in Action: Best Practices for Dispute Resolution Teaching and Learning  City University of Hong Kong

2014-11-20

Co-Host and Moderator

Online Dispute Resolution 2014  UC Hastings and Stanford Law School

2014-06-25

Event Moderator

ADRx: Innovations in Reducing and Resolving Conflict in our Communities  San Mateo, CA.

2014-06-11

Mediators in the Field: Experiences Around the Globe

2014-01-01

How do courts, as systems of dispute resolution, compare in their development of court-connected mediation programs? How do practitioners in various countries lay the groundwork for a successful court-based ADR (alternative or appropriate dispute resolution) program? How do they select and train their neutrals, and how do they implement their visions and evaluate their programs? To start looking at these questions, we decided to go beyond the institutional structure of court-connected mediation programs and see what a brief survey might tell us about the perspectives and experiences of mediators themselves. The goal of our survey was to learn a bit about the mediators, the nature of their practice, the source of their referrals, and how deeply people in their communities accept mediation as a dispute resolution option. A preliminary understanding of these issues, we believe, might guide ADR policymaking and prompt future research efforts.

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Dispute System Design: A Comparative Study of India, Israel, and California

2013-01-01

Alternative dispute resolution ("ADR") is practiced around the world with myriad approaches, though not without common ground. In an increasingly interconnected world, the sharing of this knowledge and experience has become a natural and even necessary step in the evolution of ADR. This Article compares the experience of three diverse court systems at different stages of ADR program development in Delhi, India; Tel Aviv, Israel; and San Mateo County, California. The first section briefly describes the origins of each court-annexed mediation program. The second section sets out a framework for analysis and then compares the three systems according to these analytic elements. This Article concludes with some observations on cross-cutting themes and trends for the future.

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Court Program Funding: Advice From the Trenches

2002-01-01

Funding a court ADR program takes creativity and time- and it involves going to a variety of sources that may take you in directions you never imagined. This article focuses on approaches for seeking long-term funding for staffing and operating a court ADR program.

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Facilitation for Attorneys

Much of the law school curriculum is focused on advocacy and resolving disputes. Facilitation requires a different philosophical approach and a complementary set of skills. Facilitators act as neutral parties, helping groups of people to communicate and work together more effectively in situations where the focus is on learning, collaborative problem-solving and decision-making, rather than on resolving a specific dispute. Attorneys, who are used to operating as advocates, can greatly increase their effectiveness in group situations by mastering the skills of effective neutral facilitation. For many attorneys, one of the most frustrating parts of the legal profession is having to participate in endless and unproductive meetings. Attorneys can use facilitation skills to improve the efficiency and productivity of meetings by: developing meeting agendas that optimize input and minimize wasted time; intervening in ways that reduce disruptive and counter-productive behavior; and setting group norms that encourage appropriate contributions, both before and during meetings. This course is designed specifically for law students and applies facilitation to real world situations in the legal profession such as meetings of: Boards of Directors (for non-profits and for-profits); corporate shareholders; public committees and councils; co-counsel and law firm staff. Facilitation is particularly valuable in situations where developing and preserving strong, continuing working relationships is important, or where there are highly charged personal interactions, such as between birth mothers and adopting parents, between employers and employees or Unions, among heirs to an estate, or in condominium or professional associations. Students in this course will learn how to improve their personal communications skills, plan and run successful meetings, improve communication among group members, and guide effective decision-making processes.

Dispute Systems Design

This advanced course in dispute system design will broaden the student's skill set to include being able to diagnose dispute systems and recommend dispute system design approaches that go beyond traditional litigation. Lawyers' help clients shape the way various institutions (corporations, non-profits, work places, schools, and nations) manage and resolve disputes. As organizations and their leaders become conscious of the rising cost of disputes they are looking for opportunities to be more effective and efficient in the procedures they develop to address groups of conflicts. Customized approaches to dispute management have led to the evolving field of dispute system design. A small but growing number of law schools see that their students will benefit from exposure to this field. Students will be guided through the use of dispute system assessment, system design, implementation and evaluation. Topics to be developed will be how to identify the elements that can be found across dispute systems, how the goals of systems compare to the outcomes, how to seize the opportunity to create customized approaches, how various dispute system models were developed and what values they reflect. The course will also consider the implications of privatizing justice and the impact of dispute system design and control upon the broader concepts of justice. The emphasis will be on case studies that provide guiding principles for successful design, implementation and evaluation of dispute management systems. Students will also be expected to critique how and why some of these systems fall short in delivering on stated goals. Throughout the course these systems will be compared to our traditional civil and criminal justice systems. Instruction will include a dissection of complex dispute system designs in a number of areas- labor relations, courts, mass tort claims, world trade, corporations, online dispute resolution and transitional justice.