At an address in 1976, our friend and colleague, Harvard Law School professor Frank Sander, advanced the concept of the multi‐door courthouse, a public facility that would provide not just binding adjudication but other dispute resolution services, including mediation in its many forms. If Frank had a dime for every time since then someone has used the term “multi‐door,” he would have a fortune (although it wouldn't come close to matching his wealth of admirers).

In a fascinating article in this issue, “Overcoming Barriers to Mediation in Intake Calls to Services,” Elizabeth Stokoe examines what happens when potential clients knock on the mediation door — who greets them and what they say. She analyzed recordings of two hundred intake calls to mediation services in the United Kingdom and discovered that some staff unwittingly discourage people from engaging in the process. Particularly striking is her finding that characterizing mediation as impartial is often a turnoff. While we may think of impartiality as a high virtue, people who are aggrieved and feel their counterparts are unreasonable (or worse) are looking for empathy and affiliation, not fairness.

In a complementary piece, “Mediation and Culture,” Greg Bond explains how the rapid growth of the International Commercial Mediation Competition has compelled its organizers to consider the role of culture in the event. Launched in 2006, the competition originally just involved student teams from Western Europe and the United States. In 2013, thirty‐one countries, from each of the populated continents, were represented. This broader participation is welcome but has called into question the appropriateness of “Western,” outcome‐based standards of success that are far from universal. But Bond argues that questions of multiculturalism in negotiation and mediation have often focused too narrowly on national culture. The competition, he writes, demonstrates that culture comes in many forms.

I can't claim it was planned, but this issue also includes another piece on a closely related topic, Remigiusz Smolinski and Peter Kesting's “World Championship in Negotiation?” They describe the many benefits of inter‐university competitions for students, which go beyond what can be learned in a conventional classroom. They note, for example, how competitive stakes amplify participants' emotions in ways that are closer to real‐life negotiating. Smolinski and Kesting also stress the positive impact of having students from different parts of the world engage one another.

You will find Katalien Bollen and Martin Euwema's article on workplace mediation under our State of the Art banner. We've used this heading occasionally in the past to highlight articles that survey recent scholarship in particular domains, and we encourage more submissions of this sort. Here, Bollen and Euwema catalog research on the use of mediation to resolve workplace disputes, including termination issues, discrimination, and harassment. They report that there have been relatively few empirical studies of the effectiveness of workplace mediation, especially in regard to long‐term impacts, and make strong arguments for the potential benefits of such research.

Finally, in “Attorneys and Negotiation Ethics: A Material Misunderstanding?” Art Hinshaw, Peter Reilly, and Andrea Kupfer Schneider write about conflicts of a different sort, namely the sometimes inconsistent obligations that lawyers have to their clients, their profession, and to themselves. Their survey data suggest that the glass may be two‐thirds full. Although many lawyers do strive to act according to the professional rules of ethical conduct when they negotiate, a sizable minority fails to honor these norms. Furthermore, the authors note, those standards may merely set a minimum in judging ethical behavior. The authors offer a set of strategies that can help lawyers maintain their ethical integrity in practice while simultaneously defending their clients against the ethical lapses of opposing counsel. They also make several recommendations for the law school professors who are training the newest generation of practitioners.

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