HNMCP@20: Reimagining Dispute Systems for a Changing World

We hope you will join us for HNMCP@20: Reimagining Dispute Systems for a Changing World, taking place November 6–7, 2026, at Harvard Law School.

This gathering will mark the twentieth anniversary of the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program and the Dispute Systems Design Clinic. It will be both a celebration of HNMCP’s history and an opportunity to consider where our field needs to go next.

We will bring together students, alumni, practitioners, scholars, clients, and friends to explore how we can design systems that are more resilient, responsive, participatory, and just.

Rather than a traditional conference of sequential panels, this is a participatory event.  Through collaborative visioning, short presentations, and small group work, we hope to identify priorities and possibilities for future collaboration and new directions for the field.

The program will explore several themes that emerged from working groups that we ran this summer:

• how to build trust, legitimacy, and meaningful participation when established systems are under strain;
• how to address power, voice, and context in increasingly polarized and inequitable environments;
• how to balance technological possibility with human judgment, accountability, and access; and
• how to create sustainable infrastructure for conflict prevention and engagement rather than relying solely on episodic responses to conflict.

Please register at the HNMCP@20 website.