Academics

Law professor elected as member to ABA Dispute Resolution Section

Penn State Law Professor Nancy Welsh has been elected as a Council Member-at-Large of the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Section of Dispute Resolution. Her three-year term began on Aug. 6 and will run through the 2014 annual meeting.

Established in 1993, the Section of Dispute Resolution is the largest dispute resolution section in the world with more than 19,000 members. The section's primary goal is to maintain the ABA's national leadership role in the dispute resolution field. Other objectives include providing information to members, legislators, government departments and the general public on all aspects of dispute resolution; studying existing methods for the prompt and effective resolution of disputes; adapting current legal procedures to accommodate court-annexed and court-directed dispute resolution processes; activating state and local bar involvement in dispute resolution, and conducting public and professional education programs.

“According to the American Bar Association, ‘ADR’ is one of the three top growth areas in legal practice. Today, lawyers advise clients regarding their procedural options and represent them in a wide variety of dispute resolution and decision-making processes. Lawyers are even helping clients design new dispute resolution systems in both the public and private sectors. This is an important time in the dispute resolution field, and I look forward to working with the other members of the Council and the Section to make a difference," Welsh said.

Welsh’s research and writing focus on negotiation, court-connected and agency-connected mediation, and arbitration. She has examined the procedural and substantive justice offered by these processes, their potential to resolve nonlegal as well as legal issues, their consistency with the promise of self-determination, and, ultimately, the effects that courts, lawyers, traditional litigation and institutionalized “alternative” processes have on each other.

Earlier this year, Welsh was named Most Valuable Peacemaker by the Pennsylvania Council of Mediators. She is former chair of the Alternative Dispute Resolution Section of the Association of American Law Schools. She also is a member of the editorial board of the "Conflict Resolution Quarterly," Independent Standards Commission of the International Mediation Institute, Mediation Advisory Board of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania Joint State Government Commission Advisory Committee on Alternative Dispute Resolution.

Professor Nancy Welsh Credit: Penn StateCreative Commons

Last Updated July 22, 2015

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