The Center has been created to enhance professional education for sophisticated practice in negotiation and problem solving, including the many alternative ways and means of resolving disputes. The Center's seminars, forums, workshops and courses draw upon work from a variety of disciplines, including law, behavioral science, and decision-science. All of the Center's offerings reflect a commitment to enhancing participants skills, judgment and strategic choices in addition to providing substantive information. Students and professionals enrolled in a course or workshop offered by the Center will learn to expand their analytical perspectives and to practice different techniques for effective negotiation and problem solving.

What the Center Offers Practitioners and Students
For Practitioners: We are a resource for people who negotiate and seek to solve problems on behalf of their clients, businesses, organizations or themselves. The Center will also contribute to the greater Cincinnati legal community practice in negotiation and dispute resolution, by sponsoring lecture and discussion forums, interactive workshop programs, and creating opportunities for practitioners and students to learn together.

For Practitioners Center Offerings Include:

• Intensive Workshops in Negotiation to optimize results in transactional contexts and in resolving disputes;
• Advanced negotiation insights for resolution of disputes and problems;
• Mediation skills and strategy from the neutral's perspective;
• Mediation advocacy, from the client and lawyer's perspective; and
• Workshops will be structured with an appreciation for practitioners busy schedules with individual feedback on skills and techniques offered in some programs.
•  Periodic Seminars & Lectures including current legal updates in dispute resolution, dispute systems design, and selected topics in negotiation and decision-making.
• The Dispute Resolution Forum - a series of opportunities to exchange practice experience and build professional alliances between practitioners in negotiation and decision-making. (To be launched in 2002.)
• Professional Enhancement Through Assistance
• Participating as judges and coaches for student entries in national negotiation and mediation advocacy competitions; and
• Providing opportunities for student externs and interns to assist in negotiation and dispute resolution.

For Students: We enable law students to learn skills and theory for sophisticated practice in negotiation, mediation and other dispute resolution processes, through coursework, practice placements, research, and participation in national competitions in negotiation and mediation. The Center encourages an interdisciplinary approach to negotiation and problem solving, incorporating the study of psychology, economics, decision-making, and risk analysis. Working with the law faculty, the Center will create upper level course sequences integrating negotiation, dispute resolution, legal writing, and advocacy skills into the study of substantive legal topics. Courses and other Center activities may be open to cross registrants from other University of Cincinnati graduate schools.

For Students Center Offerings Include:

• Course offerings in Negotiation, Arbitration, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Mediation and Advanced Negotiation.
• Semester-long externships in negotiation, dispute resolution, and problem-solving.
• Participation in national competitions in negotiation and mediation advocacy, sponsored by the American Bar Association, judged by practicing attorneys.
• The Dispute Resolution Forum - a regular discussion series for learning and exchange among practitioners in negotiation and dispute resolution from law, business and other professions.
• Center workshop participation - participate in negotiation and mediation workshops with lawyers, business people, and other professionals.
• Independent projects in negotiation, problem-solving and dispute resolution, including creation of case simulations, video and other teaching materials.