Scenes from MNCRC’s Love & Logic Event on 14 February 2025.
Law schools do – generally speaking - a pretty decent job of training students to handle themselves in adversarial situations (e.g. moot courts, arbitration competitions, etc), where an adjudicator deems one party to be a “winner” over others.
While (I suppose) this type of skill training is “necessary” for aspiring lawyers, we also need to offer students more practice with collective problem solving. Learning to think not only like a lawyer, but as human beings, co-existing on a planet with finite resources. In order to facilitate this feat, we need to show students how to listen better. We need to teach them how to regulate their emotions. We need to level up their emotional and conversational intelligences and discuss how cross-cultural differences influence the dispute resolution process so that they can go out into the real world and solve complex societal problems in a meaningful and sustainable way.
Last week, the Maastricht Negotiation & Conflict Resolution Clinic hosted a panel discussion on emotional intelligence and multicultural awareness in dispute resolution. We had expert panelists - William De Catelle (White & Case), Vera Hampel (Egger Philips), and Jack Williams (Institute for Global Negotiation) – who shared with us insights from practice and what the students can do to develop their conflict resolution skills. The MNCRC Student Board members (Natalia Podstawka, David Fastriok, Iris Cecconi, Szymon Górny, Anna Haesaert and Vera Väresmaa) were instrumental in organizing and moderating the conference, showcasing what the Maastricht students are capable of.
As I continue to develop and coordinate the new Conflict Prevention & Resolution course at our law faculty, I hope to keep building on these foundational moments, bringing good people together and learning from one another as a community.