Seeking Consensus in a Polarized World: The Role of Dispute Resolution and Deliberative Democracy

Chancellor’s Professor Lecture by Carrie Menkel-Meadow

March 1, 2011


Prof. Menkel-Meadow is one of the founders of the dispute resolution field. She came to UCI Law from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was an A.B. Chettle, Jr. Professor of Dispute Resolution and Civil Procedure and Director of the Georgetown-Hewlett Program in Conflict Resolution and Legal Problem Solving. She recently received the first-ever Award for Outstanding Scholarly Work presented by the American Bar Association's Dispute Resolution section.

In her lecture, Prof. Menkel-Meadow explored recent knowledge, insights and concerns that illuminate how dispute resolution theories and practices might inform our efforts at democratic deliberation, both nationally and internationally. Among many examples, her lecture explored what went wrong when some of these methods were “scaled up” in the debates about health care policy, as well as what can go “right” with different forms of process.

Chancellor’s Professors are endowed positions awarded to a very small number of UC Irvine professors across the campus who demonstrate unusual academic merit.