{"id":847,"date":"2011-05-09T12:41:55","date_gmt":"2011-05-09T16:41:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/?p=847"},"modified":"2011-05-09T12:41:55","modified_gmt":"2011-05-09T16:41:55","slug":"abas-public-civility-initiative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/abas-public-civility-initiative\/","title":{"rendered":"ABA's Public Civility Initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is curious that, as formal training in private negotiation\u00a0increases, the quality of public negotiation has fallen into such disrepair.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Business people negotiating a private deal are trained to listen attentively, in order to discover their\u00a0counterparty’s interests, and to devise beneficial options that accomodate them.\u00a0 Yet listening is something one seldom observes in public legislative debate.\u00a0 Adjusting one’s view on the basis of what one hears, practically never.<\/p>\n

Why is that?\u00a0 And might the ADR community have something to contribute to encourage creative negotiation of matters of public interest?\u00a0 The Council of the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution seems to have something to say about both those questions.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

At the Section’s 13th Annual Spring Conference, a panel led by Robert D. Benjamin<\/a> challenged lawyers and other professional problem-solvers to recognize the risks that poor negotiation processes pose to our society, and to assume some responsibility for contributing to the improvement of public discourse.<\/p>\n

Some of these problems are endemic, we were told.\u00a0 Christine Scanlan<\/a>, a former Colorado State Representative and now Director of Legislative Affairs to Colorado Governor \u00a0John Hickenlooper, opined that “good process” is not a broadly recognized value in legislative matters — “it’s called sausage for a reason.”\u00a0 Negotiation is not always perceived by constituents as being in their interest, and for legislators time\u00a0and focus are\u00a0at a premium.\u00a0 A creative participant in the legislative process must “learn to tolerate messiness.”<\/p>\n

John Ferrugia<\/a>, a guest panelist who is a veteran legislative reporter, noted an important distinction: Negotiators\u00a0have an incentive to reach an agreement, while legislators have an incentive to retain their seats.\u00a0 Negotiators rely on their counterparty to seek shared interests, while legislators rely on their constituencies to get money to\u00a0be re-elected.\u00a0 Can a legislator afford to break with the party on a budget issue?\u00a0 Is centrism\u00a0viable when the funders are\u00a0on the extremes?\u00a0 Is the process of politics rational?<\/p>\n

Richard Reuben<\/a> introduced a Resolution that was enacted by the Council of the Section, for consideration by the ABA House of Delegate at the ABA Annual Meeting in August.\u00a0 He and others consider it a timely and forceful contribution to solving the problem of dysfunctional public negotiation.\u00a0 The Resolution provides:<\/p>\n

RESOLVED, that the American Bar Association reaffirms the principle of civility as a foundation for democracy and the rule of law.\u00a0 When dealing with the public as well as with one another, lawyers should set a high standard for civil discourse as an example for others in resolving differences constructively and without disparagement of others.<\/p>\n

FURTHER RESOLVED, that the American Bar Association urges all lawyers, ABA member entities and other bar associations to take meaningful steps to enhance the constructive role of lawyers in promoting a more civil and deliberative public discourse.<\/p>\n

FURTHER RESOLVED, that the American Bar Association urges all government officials and employees, political parties, the media, advocacy organizations, and candidates for political office and their supporters, to strive toward a more civil public discourse in the conduct of political activities and in the administration of the affairs of government.<\/p>\n

FURTHER RESOLVED, that the American Bar Association supports federal, state, territorial and local governmental policies, practices, and procedures that promote civility and civil political discourse and that are consistent with the First Amendment, and other federal and state constitutional requirements.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Peter Adler<\/a> of the Keystone Center urged us to recognize the true nature of the problem: These are discussions of “public interest,” not private “interests.”\u00a0 It is the exercise of collective power.\u00a0 These talks are reported on the TV.\u00a0 It is not two parents negotiating child custody.\u00a0 Waiting for a moment of consensus in a legislature is like\u00a0waiting for the exciting bit at a baseball game.\u00a0 It will come, but it will be unexpected and without any impact on\u00a0the way the game itself is played.\u00a0 That’s why “Town Hall meetings are not a good forum to solve problems.”\u00a0 There is a role for the creative leader in public discourse, just as there is a role for the creative facilitator in the divorce discussion.\u00a0 But importing terms like “interest,” “collaboration” and\u00a0“facilitation” from the private sphere to the public one is inartful and displays a lack of sympathy with the process of public policymaking.<\/p>\n

My well-educated and articulate daughter was complaining the other day of a friend who\u00a0equated “social safety nets” with a 4.0 student’s giving a gradepoint to a 2.0 student in an exercise in “wealth redistribution.”\u00a0 She related in lurid and\u00a0passionate detail how off-the-mark the analogy was and how social policy is different from \u00a0a student’s GPA.\u00a0 She couldn’t understand how someone could think that way.\u00a0 I told her that, any more, I\u00a0involve myself\u00a0in political discussions only if I think I can learn something from them, and have completely abandoned the goal of persuading the person I’m talking to.<\/p>\n

Is that healthy?\u00a0 Or is\u00a0it an abdication of my role as a citizen in a democratic republic?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ABA Section on Dispute Resolution has unveiled an initiative to insist upon civility in civil discourse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,34],"tags":[12,38,31],"class_list":["post-847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-negotiation","category-united-states","tag-culture","tag-lawyers","tag-negotiation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.businessconflictmanagement.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}