Editor's Introduction

• Date: 01 March 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21093
• Published date: 01 March 2014

Today I read a newsletter from a prominent lawyers’ organization indi-

cating that the biggest trend in legal services is an emphasis on dispute

prevention and early settlement. The consensus among attorneys polled for

the article was that the demand for litigation services is falling significantly

year after year while demand for mediation and conflict intervention ser-

vices is increasing. For disputants, mediators, and those working in the

fields of dispute resolution and conflict resolution, this is wonderful news!

It means the skills and concepts promulgated in the pages of Conflict Reso-

lution Quarterly (CRQ) and practiced by members of the Association for

Conflict Resolution are increasingly in demand. Painful, costly, and frus-

trating litigation is increasingly out of the financial reach of many dispu-

tants, while even those who can afford it are seeking a less adversarial path

to resolution.

The articles in this edition of CRQ embody these trends. They examine

democratic decision making and procedural justice in the classroom, tech-

niques for maintaining participant satisfaction and trust even when using

evaluative or pressing mediation strategies, concepts of justice held by

restorative justice facilitators, domestic violence survivor perspectives on

screening in family law cases, and mediating difficult value conflicts. Each

of these contributes new knowledge, skills, and understandings of decision

making and mediation.

If you have thoughts, critiques, or additional perspectives to add, please

e-mail me any time.

Happy reading!

SUSAN S. RAINES, Ph.D.

Professor, MS in Confl ict Management Program

Kennesaw State University

Editor-in-Chief, Confl ict Resolution Quarterly

sraines@kennesaw.edu

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

C R Q, vol. 31, no. 3, Spring 2014 227

© Wiley Periodicals, Inc. and the Association for Conflict Resolution

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/crq.21093