NIACR: You’ve concluded your book with a chapter entitled "The Next Thirty Years." How do you see the field of dispute resolution evolving in the next thirty years?

Bordone: It’s always fun to predict the future and probably always foolish to do so. There’s a side of me that sort of wants to go no further than, you know, than what’s in that last chapter. That is to say I think that there are a set of areas that are very ripe for further research and further exploration and my hope is that those of us in the academy will pursue those vigorously. And I think more broadly for the field, my own view is, I think how much the field evolves in the next thirty years really depends. I really do think, as our chapter suggests, that this is a bit of a crossroads for the field because in some sense the founding generation, at least of the modern dispute resolution movement, is really passing the torch to the next generation. So I think that there is an opportunity for this field to really become institutionalized, and to be taken seriously as a field onto itself in the academy, in the courts, in government, and in the world of practice. And I think there is also a possibility, sadly, that it won’t happen, and that it will fizzle into a sort of narrow specialty area. I happen to be situated at the place where there’s a lot going on in this field, so I feel more optimistic than pessimistic, but I certainly wouldn’t say it’s a foregone conclusion that thirty years from now dispute resolution will be a definite part of every graduate school curriculum; that it will have made its way into elementary schools; and that we’ll be able to talk about basic processes like mediation and negotiation with any decently educated person. But I think it’s possible and that’s certainly my hope.

Moffitt: I think, if I could fast forward thirty years, but only had time to look in a couple of quick places to see how it all went, the two things that I would look at would be universities and businesses. I think that the future of the field will be shaped largely by those two. And I think there’s a chance that in thirty years, in a university setting, one would look back at the now very old and weathered-looking The Handbook of Dispute Resolution and say, "That’s just an absurd undertaking they did there. It's like doing a handbook of political science or a handbook of sociology. How could you possibly do something of a whole discipline in one little book?" That would be wonderful. I would love to see dispute resolution take on a more legitimate, free standing role within in the university setting. I don’t know if that will happen. I also think I would want to know how businesses think about dispute resolution. Because I think there is a chance that in thirty years dispute resolution and its various forms will just be an "of course," as far as how businesses think about things; the same way they think about human resources and marketing and strategy. Those are the two indicators that I would look to first to see where the field has gone and then, tracing backwards, what would it look like to get from here to there thirty years from now. I think that’s kind of fun to think about. I don’t know exactly what that would take. I think it’s going to take more efforts like the handbook; it’s going to take more schools doing programs like PON; it's going to take people emerging from those programs and going to business and applying them. And I really could see that happening.

NIACR: Is there a favorite chapter of the book that each of you has?

Bordone: I’m going to pass on that on. They’re all great. I love them all.

Moffitt: I think that different chapters serve different functions.  So some of the chapters are really synthesis chapters. They are chapters that try to describe in a small number of pages stuff that has been talked about for a while but hasn’t ever really been summarized quite so succinctly, and so I’m thinking of things like the negotiation chapter. It does, I think, a really nice job a pulling together a lot of ideas that have been around, but does it in a form that I think is more approachable than anything I have seen of that length. And so I’m quite fond of that chapter but it’s different than some of the other chapters that take, I think, a first cut or an early cut at a topic that really hasn’t received as much treatment. And there are examples of that in the book as well. Some of the work in there on personality or perceptions or agents, is much newer thinking and so I expect it will evolve. But I’m proud of that as well because it represents some cutting edge stuff. And here is where we would insert all the caveats about, of course, how we love everyone who has contributed and everything. Bob’s answer is probably better.

NIACR: Any plans, either individually or together to do another book?

Bordone: Michael and I haven’t talked explicitly about another book and, you know I love this project, so all along the way I kept on saying to Michael, "I’m ready to do the next one with you, and all you have to do Michael is just keep me on schedule." Michael did a wonderful job, I mean in all respects, but in particular when you work on a project like this it’s nice to have somebody who is very diligent about deadlines and who, without ever making you feel badly, holds you accountable and Michael is the perfect counterpart for that for me. So we haven’t really talked seriously about another book but I’d be keen to do one. Certainly, I think, I will at some point want to do another book because this is a really fun project and one from which I learned a tremendous amount about our field, and also just in terms of working with the authors and with Michael, it was tremendously rewarding. So I believe my thinking has been to try to enjoy this a little bit and have a little bit of a normal life and then start thinking about what’s next.

Moffitt: I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about books. I’ve been working on other writing projects, more back in the traditional mode of, you know I am a law professor, and so most of my writing projects recently have been law review in format. And I probably will do that for a while. If the right project comes along, absolutely. Like Bob, I learned a ton. I enjoyed it a ton, but it's a crazy amount of work. And I am not looking for a reason to write a book. I will write a book if the right book comes a long.

NIACR: Ok gentlemen, that wraps it up. I want to thank you for dong the interview.

Bordone: Thank you, we’re so thrilled about the award too. Thank you so much.

Moffitt: It really, it meant a lot. I really appreciate it.

NIACR: No problem, it was well deserved.

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