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2 Harv. Negot. L. Rev. 229 (1997)
Book Review

handle is hein.journals/haneg2 and id is 235 raw text is: Tools of the Trade: A Manual for the Settlement-Oriented Mediator David A. Hoffnant MEDIATING LEGAL DIsPuTEs: EFFECTVE STRATEGIES FOR LAWYERS AND MEDIATORS. By Dwight Golann.1 Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1996. Pp. 545. Is the purpose of mediation to settle disputes or to empower and transform the parties? Is the goal of mediation to stem the tide of litigation that has engulfed our civil justice system or to foster a more humane, relation-based social system? Dwight Golann's Mediating Legal Disputes: Effective Strategies for Lawyers and Mediators takes as its starting point the proposition that the mediator's primary func- tion is to resolve disputes.2 In doing so, he parts company with advo- cates of mediation as a transformative process-an approach which has received widespread attention recently with the publication of Robert A. Baruch Bush and Joseph P. Folger's 1994 book, The Prom- ise of Mediation: Responding to Conflict Through Empowerment and Recognition.3 Early in his book Golann distinguishes his approach Copyright © David A. Hoffman. t Lecturer on Law, Harvard Law School; Member, Hill & Barlow, Boston, Mas- sachusetts. Mr. Hoffman is an attorney, mediator, and arbitrator. He is a member of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Standing Committee on Dispute Resolu- tion and co-author, with Professor David Matz, of MASSACHUsErrs ALTErNAnvE DIs- PUTS RESOLUTION (1996). The author thanks David Hoffer and the editors of HNLR for their comments on a previous draft of this book review. 1. Professor of Law, Suffolk University Law School A graduate of Amherst Col- lege and Harvard Law School, Professor Golann is a member of the Panel of Distin- guished Neutrals and of the Training Faculty of the Center for Public Resources (CPR) Institute of Dispute Resolution. He also serves as a senior mediator and trainer for JAMS/Endispute. 2. Golann articulates the premise that agreement is the goal of mediation sev- eral times: [Alithough neutrals should look actively for opportunities to repair the parties' relationship and 'create value' in other ways, a mediator's primary goal is to resolve the dispute before him or her (p. 24); 'falgreement is the prime reason to undertake mediation (p. 36). 3. See ROBERT A. BARUCH BUSH & JOSEPH P. FoLGER, THE PnobusE OF MEDIA- TION: RESPONDING TO CONFLICT THROUGH EMPoWvERmIEN Am RECOGNITION 12 (1994) (contrasting the problem-solving and transformative approaches to mediation and ar- guing for the transformative focus on empowerment and recognition). Baruch Bush and Folger, who are the most prominent advocates of a transformative approach to 229

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