Cardozo School of Law is consistently recognized as a leader in alternative dispute resolution (ADR). Read on to find out about our many ongoing efforts to further conflict resolution and to train our exceptional students to be world leaders in the field.
Letter from The Director
I am so very excited to join the faculty at Cardozo Law as the director of the hallowed Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution. This program has an illustrious history—created almost 30 years ago by founding director, colleague and friend, Lela Love. I have such joy at being given the opportunity to expand on her legacy and the impressive foundation she and others have built. There is so much I’m looking forward to in the year ahead, including working with our top-ranked Cardozo Journal on Conflict Resolution for a symposium this fall and our International Advocate for Peace Award this spring; coaching and helping with the extensive competition team program—the ADR competition honors society; expanding our LL.M. in dispute resolution and continuing to place our graduates around the country and around the world doing amazing things.
I am looking forward to working with all the wonderful people who make up the Kukin Program—three devoted full-time clinic directors focused on different aspects of ADR; numerous talented adjuncts bringing our students the latest in practice innovations and devoted alumni throughout the world who are happy to step up and continue to support this program. As we move from director to director—from generation to generation—may we also grow from strength to strength.
Andrea Kupfer Schneider, Director, Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution Professor of Law
Letter from the Founding Director
The world is changing. Our program is changing. We are tasked with making sure the change is toward the good. In this era when dialogue and collaboration are at a low ebb in relations of all kinds, building a better and stronger dispute resolution program for lawyers continues to be a critical contribution to the evolution of legal pedagogy -- if not human development.
This summer, Cardozo’s Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution welcomed two superstars in the legal dispute resolution arena: Andrea Schneider as the new Director of the program and Robyn Weinstein as the new Director of the Mediation Clinic and Associate Director of the program. I will continue as Founding Director for the next two years during this exciting transition.
Schneider developed and led Marquette University’s Dispute Resolution Program for 15 years to a position of eminence in the field. She has written 12 books and 43 law journal articles (this is not counting book chapters and other publications), and she is a leader in the U.S. and international legal arenas as a teacher and speaker. Robyn is a recognized national leader of court ADR, having served as ADR Administrator at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Before that, she was the Student Director and later a Fellow of the Kukin Program at Cardozo and the President of the Southern California Mediation Association.
Thinking of Oliver Wendell Holmes’ “build thee more stately mansions” as a polestar for what we must do in this time of transition, I believe Cardozo’s Kukin Program is well positioned to do that.
Lela Love, Founding Director, Kukin Center for Conflict Resolution, Professor of Law
Our Faculty
Andrea Kupfer Schneider, Director of the Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution, Professor of Law
Lela Love, Founding Director, Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution
Director, Divorce Mediation Clinic; Professor of Practice
Robert Collins
Director, Divorce Mediation Clinic; Professor of Practice
Professor of Law, Former Vice Dean
Myriam Gilles
Professor of Law, Former Vice Dean
Director, Securities Arbitration Clinic; Clinical Professor of Law
Elizabeth Goldman
Director, Securities Arbitration Clinic; Clinical Professor of Law
Director, Filmmakers Legal Clinic, Clinical Associate Professor of Law
Michelle Greenberg-Kobrin
Director, Filmmakers Legal Clinic, Clinical Associate Professor of Law
Co-Director, Bet Tzedek Civil Litigation Clinic; Clinical Professor of Law
Leslie Salzman
Co-Director, Bet Tzedek Civil Litigation Clinic; Clinical Professor of Law
Director, Mediation Clinic; Associate Director, Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution
Robyn Weinstein
Director, Mediation Clinic; Associate Director, Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution
Professor of Practice
David Weisenfeld
Professor of Practice
Cardozo Faculty Step In To Help Ukrainian Law Students
Professor Michelle Greenberg-Kobrin, in collaboration with clinical professors at several U.S. law schools, organized a seven-part skills-based training for five Ukrainian law schools. The trainings cover interviewing, counseling, negotiations and conflict resolution. There are 40 to 80 participants in each workshop, and the program is translated simultaneously into Ukrainian. Professors Leslie Salzman, Elizabeth Goldman, and Andrea Kupfer Schneider also teach in this program.
Recent Faculty Accomplishments and Scholarship
Professors Andrea Schneider and Myriam Gilles were elected to The American Law Institute in 2022. ALI, founded in 1923, is the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize and improve the law. Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo was among its early leaders.
Robyn Weinstein ’09 Joins Cardozo As Director of Cardozo Mediation Clinic and Associate Director of Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution
Previously, Weinstein was the Alternative Dispute Resolution Administrator for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, where she was a mediator and directed the court's mediation, arbitration and mediation advocacy programs.
Continued Success for The Cardozo ADR Competition Honor Society in 2021-2022
In fall 2021, ADR Competition Honor Society (ADRCHS) members Noah Page ’23 and Victoria Budhan ’23 took First Place at the 2021 Regional ABA Negotiation Competition. The ADRCHS had another big victory at the INADR Invitational Mediation Tournament when Jordan Stark ’23 received first place for “Top Overall Mediator.” ADRCHS also competed in the FINRA Securities Dispute Resolution Triathlon, in which Antranik Chekemian ’22, Anna Chen ’22 and Mieola Easter ’23 placed first in the Arbitration Round.
Best-Selling Author William Ury Presented with International Advocate for Peace Award
Best-selling author and speaker William Ury was presented with the 21st International Advocate for Peace Award in March 2022. He accepted the award at the Annual Melnick Symposium.
Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution Hosts 2022 Melnick Annual Symposium: The Death and Resurrection of Dialogue
In March 2022, the Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution hosted the Melnick Annual Symposium on “The Death and Resurrection of Dialogue.” The symposium included nationally renowned speakers discussing a range of topics, including the potential of the news media to develop public discourse and prevent conflict; the importance of dialogue and civic engagement in community building; methods to bridge inequalities in communities and in mediation; and the effect of virtual and caucus-only mediation on conflict resolution.
Four Cardozo Students Receive 2022 Boskey Restorative Justice Fellowships
Sarah Brody ’24, Jillian Leavey ’24, Emily Bernstein ’24 and Julia Patz ’23 were selected as 2022 Boskey Restorative Justice Fellows. The fellowship, funded by the James B Boskey Memorial Foundation, supports law students as summer researchers and clerks at the Red Hook Community Justice Center and the Lenape Working Group in partnership with the Cardozo Law Institute in Holocaust and Human Rights.
2022 Kukin Program Student Fellow: Se Won Park ’23
Se Won Park ’23 is the Student Fellow for the Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution. She is a Senior Editor of the ADR Competition Honor Society and the Student Coach of the 2022 Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitratoin Pre-Moot Team. During summer 2021, she was a Boskey Restorative Justice Fellow with the Red Hook Community Justice Center. In 2017, she graduated from the NYU Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where she focused on social justice and museum studies. Before studying at Cardozo Law School, she earned a master's degree in Human Rights at Columbia University with a concentration in post-conflict resolution.
She recently published Every Reasonable Chance Plus Two: How the Red Hook Community Justice Center Bridges the Gap Between the Community and the Justice System, 23 Cardozo J. Conflict Resol., 575 (2022).
Stephen Wah ’17 Named 2022 Higginbotham Fellow
Stephen Wah was one of 15 named a 2022 AAA Higginbotham Fellow Established in 2009, the program provides training, mentorship and networking opportunities to a diverse group in the alternative dispute resolution field.
Alumni Spotlight
Maurice Robinson ’09 received the inaugural Tziporah Pronman Award at the 10th Anniversary Gala of FamilyKind on May 5. FamilyKind is a non-profit that provides support and mediation services to families in transition due to separation or divorce regardless of their ability to pay.