For more than three decades, Professor Frank E. A. Sander has been a leader in the field of alternative dispute resolution. His publications and papers — widely used in law schools throughout the country — have been important contributions to the acceptance and growth of the field. One of his earlier papers put forth the notion of the multidoor courthouse, presently utilized in several cities in the United States and abroad. He has been much sought-after as a speaker at conferences in this country and in Canada, Europe, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.
An expert on taxation, family law and dispute settlement, Sander was named the Bussey Professor Emeritus when he retired in 2006 after forty-seven years on the Law School faculty. At Harvard, where he received his undergraduate degree as well as his L.L.B., he taught many dispute resolution courses at the Law School and under the auspices of the Program on Negotiation. He was co-director of the Law School Program on Dispute Resolution since its inception. Professor Sander was often called upon to serve as a consultant on dispute resolution, including to the American Bar Association and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Throughout his career he also remained an active labor arbitrator and mediator.
Professor Sander’s commitment to civil rights and equal opportunity was exemplified in his service as director of a special summer program that brought forty African American college students to Harvard Law School for, and as chair of the Council on Legal Education Opportunity, a national organization devoted to the recruitment and training of disadvantaged persons for the law. In the early 1960s he was a member of the Committee on Civil and Political Rights of President Kennedy’s Commission on the Status of Women.
Not surprisingly his honors have been many: the American Arbitration Association’s Whitney North Seymour Medal for distinguished service to arbitration and other forms of dispute resolution, the Center for Public Resources’ special award “for distinguished contributions to the field of alternative dispute resolution,” the ABA’s Robert J. Kutak medal for meeting ” the highest standards of professional responsibility and demonstrates substantial achievement towards increased understanding between legal education and the active practice of law,” the D’Alemberte Raven medal for outstanding contributions to the field of dispute resolution, and the Lifelong Achievement Award by the International Academy of Mediators. In 1989 the ABA, with funds contributed by the National Institute for Dispute Resolution, established the Frank E.A. Sander Lecture Series on dispute resolution to make possible an annual presentation by a leading scholar or practitioner.
Some eighteen years ago, Professor Sander conceived the idea of publishing this Directory to serve Boston-area students in search of additional opportunities to study dispute resolution within and outside of their own schools. The growth of the Directory over the years has mirrored the growth of dispute resolution in this area and others, due in no small part to the work of Professor Sander who continues his commitment to sharing information in his position as editor emeritus.
