Acknowledgments

AuthorAndrew J. Pirie
ProfessionFaculty of Law. University of Victoria
Pages17-18
xvii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In 1983, as a young law professor, who had recently left the Toronto firm
of Osler, Hoskin and Harcourt to pursue an academic career at the Uni-
versity of Victoria, I was fortunate enough to attend a conference in San
Fransisco entitled “Beyond the Adversary Model: Teaching Mediation in
American Law Schools.” I was expecting some fairly standard fare and
hoping the exposure to mediation would be an interesting addition to my
practical experience as a litigation lawyer. In fact the conference was a
life-changing event — one that many people delving into ADR can have.
This book on alternative dispute resolution is my effort at sharing
the experiences I have had with ADR over the last twenty years from a
practising lawyer’s, law profeesor’s, and mediator’s perspectives.
However, in addition to my own experiences, many people, in one
way or another, also have contributed to the book’s final form and con-
tent. I would like to thank several ADR pioneers from the 1983 confer-
ence who inspired me to make ADR the focus of my teaching, research,
and writing, particularly Gary Friedman, Jack Himmelstein, Len Riskin,
and Carrie Menkel-Meadow. I also want to acknowledge how important
Chris Moore, Susan Wildau, Bernie Mayer, and Mary Margaret Golten
of CDR Associates were to my understanding of this field, particularily
the mediation process.
I also am indebted to the many reflective ADR practitioners and aca-
demics in Canada and beyond with whom I have had rewarding
exchanges of ideas and insights. I especially want to thank Marj Burdi-
ne, Jane Chart, Connie Edwards, Paul Emond, Neil Gold, Jerry McHale,
Catherine Morris, Stephen Owen, Dean Peachy, Gordon Sloan, Dinah
Stanley, and Bonita Thompson.
I was fortunate to have the assistance of several law students who
helped with the collection and analysis of the materials that have gone
into the book — Carole Aippersbach, Karyn Arter, Roshan Danesh, Alli-
son Fieldberg, Misty Hillard, Wanda Kelley, Lex Reynolds.
The final production of this book also would not have been possible
without the careful input of my assistant, Sheila Talbot, who kept order

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