Program on Negotiation

On Earth Day, we highlight some of the work being done by Harvard Law students, scholars, clinics, and programs to address some our most pressing environmental issues.

As the former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres was in charge of the 2015 climate talks in Paris. In a conscious departure from earlier conferences, she declared that any agreement should be unanimous, rather than merely a consensus.

Sheila Heen ’93, negotiation expert and trainer, has been appointed professor of practice at Harvard Law School, effective July 1, 2021. She has been a lecturer on law at HLS since 1995.

Deftly adapting to a shift in both venue and format, and applying skills from their J-Term negotiation workshop, Harvard Law 1L students Adira E. Levine, Noopur Sen, and Adam J. Toobin were able to negotiate their way to victory in The Negotiation Challenge—an international contest drawing competitors from around the world.

With the advent of sweeping disaster comes the complicated question of how properly to compensate victims. The Program on Negotiation at HLS convenes an expert panel on dispute resolution in the wake of mass disasters.

Drawing from a wide variety of prosecutorial experiences, Assistant U.S. Attorney Varghese shared insights and anecdotes with the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program's Negotiation Workshop about what it is like to negotiate in the real world.

Rachel A. Viscomi ’01 has been appointed assistant clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School and named director of the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program. She was formerly a lecturer on law at HLS and the acting director of HNMCP.

Frank E.A. Sander ’52, a pioneer in the field of alternative dispute resolution and a longtime Harvard Law professor, died Feb. 25, 2018. He was 90.

HLS Professor Mnookin, who for many years chaired the school’s Program on Negotiation, joins two other Harvard-affiliated professors in a study of the former secretary of state’s public and private deal-making, based on extensive interviews with Henry Kissinger on negotiation strategy and tactics.

Professor Guhan Subramanian ’98 will be the new chair of the Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School. Subramanian holds appointments at both Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School. As chair of PON, he will succeed Professor Robert H. Mnookin `68.

Frank E.A. Sander ’52, a longtime Harvard Law School professor and a pioneer in the field of Alternative Dispute Resolution, has died. He was 90.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos came to Harvard Law School on Sept. 20, to receive the “Great Negotiator Award,” an honor bestowed by the Program on Negotiation to recognize individuals whose “lifetime achievements in the field of negotiation and dispute resolution have had a significant and lasting impact.”

A look back at 2016, highlights of the people who visited, events that took place and everyday life at Harvard Law School.

Harvard Law School is pleased to announce that a $1 million gift from Ada Tse ’91 and James Yang through their family’s YangTse Foundation will expand and enhance the Law School’s signature Negotiation Workshop, an intensive course that combines theory and practice to improve students’ understanding of negotiation and their effectiveness as negotiators.

As the final speaker in this year's "Last Lecture" Series was Bob Bordone, Thaddeus R. Beal clinical professor of law and director of the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program, who spoke about a how simple Facebook status update from 2013 led him to consider the elements of a successful career today.

In just one decade, Everett, Massachusetts, once a predominantly white city, has become the most racially and ethnically diverse in the commonwealth. Building communication between police officers and local youth is a priority for Chief of the Everett Police Department Steven A. Mazzie, who is white, as are 86 percent of his officers. Last fall he invited a team of HLS students from the Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program to Everett for an impartial assessment.

In last year’s Academy Award-nominated film “Bridge of Spies,” Tom Hanks plays a lawyer who defends an accused Soviet spy in the U.S. The Hanks character appears to be dumbfounded that he has been asked to take on such an assignment. “I’m an insurance lawyer,” he says. The real lawyer whom Hanks portrays, James B. Donovan ’40, was that—and much more.

How can you defend a foreigner who came to the United States with the likely intent of causing harm to Americans? For attorney James B. Donovan, a 1940 graduate of Harvard Law School, the real question at the height of the Cold War was: How can you not?