What is Dispute System Design? Guest: Sheila Purcell

My guest Sheila Purcell is an expert and pioneer in court ADR (alternative dispute resolution) programs in California. She explains her professional background in community mediation and dispute resolution for low and middle-income people, the advantages and disadvantages of a bottom-up style mediation program and how she started her successful court ADR program in California. She goes on to describe how she fell into working in dispute system design, what it entails and how she likes designing programs and being the bridge between parties and mediators. She talks about what legal clinics do in a mediation context (i.e mediating employment and housing disputes for small claim cases) and how she thinks the pandemic will affect the future of dispute resolution. She emphasises the need for conflict resolvers and finding ways for people to value civility and talk to each other.