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19 Disp. Resol. Mag. 27 (2012-2013)
Book Reviews

handle is hein.journals/disput19 and id is 165 raw text is: l Book ReviewI Psychology for Lawyers: Understanding the Human Factors in Negotiation, Litigation and Decision Making A welcome volume that is thorough, readable, entertaining and educational Reviewed by Richard Birke Starting with the Conclusion Psychology for Lawyers is a great book. are a transactional lawyer, a litigator, a m or a mediator, you owe it to yourself to bu and build its lessons into your practice. A Robbenolt and Jean Sternlight have prod that is thorough and readable, based in th imminently practical, and as entertaining it is educational. The book consists of 15 chapters. The first seven are a primer in psychology, the next seven apply psychology to legal practice and a concluding chapter helps the reader use psychology to achieve satisfac- tion as a lawyer and as a person. In a mere 460 pages, the authors bring lawyers a wealth of information. In my view, this is a clear best-in-class and a must buy. Now that the conclusion is all wrapped up, we can work our way back from the beginning. We'll start with some history. A Brief History of the Intersection of Law and Psychology ror most of nistory, the intersec- tion between law and psychology has been dominated by a single question: whether a criminal defendant lacks the capacity to understand whether his actions are right or wrong. If Wikipedia is to be believed, not guilty by reason of insanity was argued in the time of Hammurabi. In more modern times, criminal law continued to Whether you dominate the law-and-psychology discussion. In her aptly anaging partner titled 1979 opus, Eyewitness Identification, psychologist y it, read it Elizabeth Loftus showed that cross-racial identifications uthors Jennifer tended to be particularly unreliable and that eyewitness uced a book testimony was subject to the vagaries of human memory. Ieory yet Even more recently, Lofrus and other psycholo- as gists began to grapple with false, altered or implanted memories in cases involving allegations of sexual abuse. 00 While the intersection may have expanded, a mere smidgen of the law that is, the criminal law w has enjoyed all the attention. And it still enjoys the lion's share of atrention by those who study the science of mind. The MacArthur Law and Neuroscience Project's emphasis on free will and criminality is just one example of this continu- ing fascination. For about the last three decades, law professors teaching negotiation have become aware of the relevance of cognitive and behavioral psychology to the practice of law. In the late 1980s, professor Robert Mnookin (then teaching Richard Birke is Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Dispute Resolution at the Willamette University College of Law. He thanks all his colleagues for their continued interest in law and the science of the mind. He can be reached at rbirke@willamette.edu or http://www.willamette. edu/wucl/faculty/profiles/birke/ DISPUTE RESOLUTION MAGAZINE SUMMER 2013 27

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