In a new competition hosted by Cornell University this past fall, students tested out their skills at dispute resolution over the internet. We finally received the results in December so my apologies for the delay in singing our praises.

Students could choose to play the role of the plaintiff, defendant or mediator in a mediation that was completely conducted via email. Judges then graded their performance using the transcript of the mediation. I encouraged students to participate as part of the ADR class and was delighted with the results. While we all learned more than we wanted to about technical glitches, I hope the experience was educational as well. And, impressively, Marquette students dominated the competition.

As mediators, we placed 1st (Jill Aufmuth) 4th (Jillian Dickson-Igl) and tied for 5th (TJ Wendel). As defendants, we placed 1st (Tea Norfolk), 3rd (Alexander Golubiewski), 4th (Heather Hough) and 5th (Marcus Hirsch). And, as plaintiffs, we tied for 1st (Ryan Session and Dillon Raunio), placed 2nd (Casey Shorts and Frederick Hostetler), 3rd (Kelsey Burazin and Kyle Silver), 4th (Paul Gunderson and Ryan Ybarra), and 5th (Adam Gilmore and Antwayne Robinson). Another way to measure how well we did is that out of the 17 teams that placed, 12 of those teams were from Marquette. A very impressive record!

My congratulations to all the students that placed and appreciation to all those ADR students who participated. Well done.