Dispute Resolution, Insurance, and Points of Convergence
![handle is hein.journals/jdisres2015 and id is 265 raw text is:
JOURNAL OF
DISPUTE RESOLUTION
VOLUME 2015 NUMBER 2
DISPUTE RESOLUTION,
INSURANCE, AND POINTS OF
CONVERGENCE
Robert H. Jerry, II
No one who has consistently read the articles, notes, and comments published
in the Journal of Dispute Resolution through the years needs an explanation of the
remarkable trajectory of the field of dispute resolution, the increased use of alter-
native dispute resolution processes throughout the conflict resolution landscape,
the revolutionary embrace of mediation by courts and governmental agencies in
both the state and federal systems, the maturation of the academic study of the
process and substance of dispute resolution, and the rapidly growing recognition
in the profession and the academy that the study of dispute resolution better pre-
pares law students to assume the awesome responsibilities of client representation
upon their admission to the bar. What may be less well understood is how the
field of dispute resolution intertwines with the principles, doctrines, and practices
of particular fields of law, excepting those subject matter areas into which the
lawyer or academic has had the opportunity to delve with some degree of special
emphasis.
Interestingly, the field of insurance law has experienced a trajectory not un-
like that of the field of dispute resolution. In the preface to the first edition of
Understanding Insurance Law, published over a quarter-century ago, I wrote that
[flew subjects as important as insurance law are so neglected by American law
schools and law students, but I noted that academic attention to insurance law
was showing signs of growth.1 Twenty-five years later in the preface to the fifth
edition, Douglas Richmond and I would write that [i]nsurance law casebooks and
treatises are now abundant, and that [ilnsurance law courses are now popular, as
law students recognize the practical importance of the subject, and that educa-
tors and students have come to understand what practicing lawyers have long
known - that insurance law is a critically important subject.' Professors Kenneth
Abraham and Daniel Schwarz observed in 2015 in the sixth edition of their case-
* Isidor Loeb Professor of Law and Senior Fellow, Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution,
University of Missouri School of Law. The author expresses his gratitude to the University of Missouri
Law School Foundation for its support during the research and writing of this article.
1. ROBERT H. JERRY, II, UNDERSTANDING INSURANCE LAW vii (1 st ed. 1987).
2. ROBERT H. JERRY, II & DOUGLAS R. RICHMOND, UNDERSTANDING INSURANCE LAW v (5th ed.
2012).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/jdisres2015&div=20&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Dispute Resolution, Insurance, and Points of Convergence
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