Prioritizing Practice in Ombudsman and ADR Programs

• Author: David E. Michael
• Date: 01 July 2014
• Published date: 01 July 2014
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21098

C R Q, vol. 31, no. 4, Summer 2014 463

Published 2014.  is article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/crq.21098

Prioritizing Practice in Ombudsman

and ADR Programs

David E. Michael

 is article examines ways in which the Offi ce of the Ombudsman/

Center for Cooperative Resolution (OO/CCR) at the National

Institutes of Health pursues activities that comprise an orientation

toward practice and supports development of an “activist” ombudsman

orientation.  e article opens by describing challenges that alternative

dispute resolution (ADR) organizations face, contrasts them with

the experience of OO/CCR, details elements of a practice orienta-

tion as experienced at OO/CCR, and suggests ways in which ADR

and ombudsman organizations may address their own challenges and

pursue a practice orientation.

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) organizations in the United States

now occupy a signifi cant space within the dispute resolution landscape

in our communities. At the same time, it is intriguing that many public

sector ADR organizations often face signifi cant challenges: distinct cultures

that put the ADR program in confl ict with the values of its host organiza-

tion, increasing administrative demands and activities that can often crowd

out emphasis on ADR practice, and the overreliance on and misapplication

of metrics to measure ADR program performance, for example.  ese and

other challenges can limit ADR organizations’ ability to promote meaningful

dispute resolution practice. In my own experience with ADR programs over

the past two decades, I have observed that court, community, and federal

sector ADR programs often struggle with some variant of these challenges.

Equally intriguing to me is that the Offi ce of the Ombudsman/Center for

Cooperative Resolution (OO/CCR) at the National Institutes of Health

has few of the challenges I have observed elsewhere (O’Brien, McManus,

Cutrona, and Boertzel 2000; Raines, Pokhrel, and Poitras 2013). OO/CCR