Mission

Welcome to the SEER ADR Committee Web Page. Our Challenge is to provide dispute resolution information that is timely and relevant to environmental, energy and resource lawyers, practicing in large and small law firms, corporate legal departments, dispute resolution firms, public interest groups, universities and state and federal government agencies, and to individuals new to ADR as well as those having experience as a neutral, counsel for an ADR participant, or both. Our scope of interest covers traditional arbitration, various formats of binding and non-binding mediation, and a variety of stakeholder engagement techniques which are often referred to as "Facilitation".

Committee Activities

Our Web Page is only one vehicle for meeting this challenge. We also attempt to participate in one or more interdisciplinary CLE programs each year, at the Keystone Conference and/or the annual Section Meeting, and we issue a quarterly Committee Newsletter, containing information about ADR programs and developments, and articles by individuals both within and outside of the Committee.

Speaker's Bureau

The Committee, in cooperation with the environmental committee of the ABA’s Dispute Resolution Section, recently established an Energy and Environmental Conflict Resolution and Prevention Speakers Bureau (“EECRP”). The Speakers Bureau will:

• Provide easy access to speakers on the effective use of ADR approaches to solve environmental and energy industry problems.
• Offer skilled presenters with a wealth of experience in the practice and use of ADR to support client interests and needs from a wide variety of private and public organizations.

The Committee will reach out to business groups and seek to offer speakers for presentations. All members of the ADR committee interested in devoting time to this effort may join the Speakers Bureau. For more details about the Speakers Bureau, please click here. A list of potential speakers and their biographies is available here. To make further inquires and arrange for speakers to meet specific needs and requirements please contact Edna Sussman at ESussman@hnrklaw.com or Robert Wax at waxadr@yahoo.com.

Membership

Because we are a relatively small committee (approximately 190 members) it is easy to get to know people and to become involved in activities. We also need all the help we can get, notwithstanding the hard work of our vice chairs, who are listed below. So if you are already a member, please consider volunteering to help with a program or membership outreach effort and get in touch with one of the committee officers. If you are not a Committee member and have any interest whatsoever in ADR, you will find it very worthwhile to belong to our Committee. To join the committee, just click on the join the committee tab.

Wanted: Newsletter Items/Authors
Have you been involved in an interesting ADR process involving environmental, energy or resource issues? Please write up your experience and send it to the Newsletter Editor.

Environmental Dispute Resolution: An Anthology of Practical Experience
Environmental Dispute Resolution: An Anthology of Practical Experience provides comprehensive and thoughtful treatment of EDR for the serious practitioner and also practical guidance for those wishing to focus on particular aspects. This book provides a toolkit of diagnostics, systems, strategies and methodologies proven effective in diverse substantive contexts. Its chapters can be read in order or they can stand alone for the reader with a particular substantive or procedural focus. The information in this book will be invaluable to anyone involved with environmental risk management, environmental management systems, environmental dispute resolution, or sustainable development system design and implementation.

Sustainable Development - ADR Committee Support
In August 2003, the ABA House of Delegates reaffirmed its 1991 commitment to sustainable development, and adopted the internationally accepted concept of "sustainable development" as used at the 2001 Rio Earth Summit and the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development--where the SEER ADR Committee's book on Environmental Dispute Resolution was released, presenting environmental conflict management and dispute resolution in a sustainability context.

In the last few years, the ADR Committee has made several educational and outreach efforts in support of its innovation and education commitments, including:

• Development of a multi-author book presenting environmental dispute resolution (EDR) concepts in a sustainability context and its release at the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa See Above Book description;
• Presentation of a CLE series on stakeholder engagement and consultation;
• Active participation in SEER's development of its Section-wide sustainable development (SD) initiative;
• Active participation in the Standing Committee on Environmental Law and it's activities related to Sustainable Development;
• A Section-wide stakeholder engagement and reporting project, including a facilitated SD issues dialogue at the recent March 2004 Keystone Conference.

The Committee's Report of results to date of its stakeholder engagement and consultation process for the Section with respect to SD issues and priorities of significance to environmental, energy, and resource practitioners -- and our next-step recommendations to the Section - are shown below.

• 2004 April Report - Stakeholder Engagement Consultation on SD Issues
• Keystone SD Dialogue Spreadsheet Issues & Priorities

The ADR Committee's support for the Section's Sustainable Development Initiative promotes progress towards sustainable development through effective stakeholder management, conflict management, and dispute resolution methodologies; foster improvements in the simultaneous management of economic, environmental, and social issues; and develops and disseminates information about stakeholder engagement, sustainability conflict management, and EDR “best practices." Materials for the above are collected at the Stakeholder Resources Page.

Uniform Mediation Act Information
Even if your environmental law (or mediation) practice crosses is strictly limited to states such as California, Floridian, Pennsylvania, or Texas where attorney-mediators were active in opposing adoption of the UMA, and where its introduction any time soon is considered unlikely, please consider the potential for the UMA to touch your practice in this increasingly new multijurisdictional practice world.

Chair:
John W. Ubinger, Jr.

Vice Chairs:
Committee Newsletters
Robert C. Fisher

Membership
Cherie P. Shanteau

Programs
Edna R. Sussman

Public Service
Joseph A. Siegel

Technology
TBD

The Year in Review
David C. Batson

Additional (Sustainable Development)
Ann L. MacNaughton