10-25-96: Before the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution

<title>10-25-96: Before the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution - Focus on the Future</title>
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 4                     FOCUS ON THE FUTURE:
 5             LEADING THE WAY TO DISPUTE RESOLUTION
 6                      IN THE 21ST CENTURY
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 8                   THE HONORABLE JANET RENO
 9             ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES
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19              FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1996, 1:05 P.M.
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22        SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONALS IN DISPUTE RESOLUTION
23             24TH ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
24                      ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA
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 1                     P R O C E E D I N G S
 2
 3                VOICE:  It gives me great pleasure today
 4      to welcome with us the Honorable Janet Reno,
 5      Attorney General of the United States.  And at
 6      this time, it's my pleasure to turn the program
 7      over for this session to Barry Stuart.
 8                He and Susan Carpenter are Co-Chairs of
 9      the program.  They have brought that unique and
10      special combination of energy and vision -- and
11      the exciting youth program that I have just been
12      privy to at which the Attorney General was
13      speaking is testimony to the enormous vision that
14      they brought into this conference.
15                I have coined a new phrase for the two
16      of them, "innervision."  And that's going to be a
17      unique and special tribute to people that combine
18      these special talents.  So I ask Barry now to come
19      over and take over this session.
20                (Applause)
21                MR. STUART:  I'm doing this under
22      duress.  It was a big mistake to give you the
23      podium.
24                I don't like introducing people whose
25      careers and whose accomplishments make me think as

                                                           3
 1      if my life is in second gear.  But I have
 2      developed a sort of philosophy about that.  And
 3      that is that these people are really triplets and
 4      that what Judge Nelson has done is she has two
 5      other sisters and they have combined their bios
 6      into one.
 7                She has very graciously said I could
 8      take a few minutes and not give you a litany of
 9      her wonderful accomplishments.
10                I want to thank, first of all, the
11      volunteers.
12                (Applause)
13                I want to thank them, first of all, for
14      violating the California dress code and wearing
15      those wonderful yellow t-shirts.  And secondly,
16      for meeting the challenge that Susan and I and our
17      Program Committee put to them of having two
18      conferences running at the same time in two
19      separate hotels amidst five other conferences, and
20      yet getting everybody to their places and on time.
21                I also want to thank our futurist,
22      William Canote, who promised us in the 21st
23      Century as we move into the fifth dimension that
24      we're all going to be employed because we're the
25      new growth industry.

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 1                I also want to thank him for this new
 2      experience about being juxtapositioned, because we
 3      can now be juxtapositioned to anyone, anything,
 4      anywhere at any time.  It sounds like a wonderful
 5      new experience.  But before the Canadians get too
 6      excited about that, I want you to know that in the
 7      new criminal code amendments the sexual provisions
 8      make juxtaposition a crime in Canada.
 9                I also want to thank John Helie who
10      brought all of those wonderful toys for us to be
11      juxtaposed with.  And they're hiding back in the
12      Cyber Cafe for whose of who you haven't had an
13      experience using them yet.  And please, go and
14      enjoy those wonderful toys that John has brought.
15                John is sort of our SPIDR
16      fifth-dimensional man.  He is the only person I
17      know who wakes up early in the morning and before
18      he gets out of bed he reaches over and hugs his
19      computer.
20                The last pitch is I hope that we will
21      all meet in Canada in the year 2000 because one of
22      the great things about Canada is it's so cold
23      there computers can only operate properly for
24      eight months of the year.  So we have four months
25      where we actually have to hug other people.

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 1                (Applause)
 2                Now, what else am I supposed to do here?
 3                This is a great pleasure to introduce to
 4      you Judge Nelson.  I have known about her through
 5      her fellow friend, Mark Wedge, who has been in the
 6      Yukon for some time.  Because not only is she a
 7      pioneer -- and let me just take two minutes to
 8      explain what a pioneer she is -- in 1967 when she
 9      was dean of the law school she started the first
10      dispute center in her law school which has been,
11      of course, a leader for many other examples across
12      both the United States and Canada.
13                Secondly, she was one of the founding
14      members of SPIDR.  She was at formative meetings
15      in Virginia way back in 1972.  So this is a person
16      who has been a friend as well as a pioneer of ADR,
17      Appropriate Dispute Resolution, since the very
18      early time.
19                So may I introduce a pioneer, a dean, a
20      judge and a wonderful person to you, Judge Nelson.
21                (Applause)
22                Ms. NELSON:  Thank you, Barry.  I was
23      hoping that you would never get to the
24      introduction.
25                The excitement in this room is well

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 1      deserved.  And I was excited before I came.  But
 2      after being with our Attorney General, with the
 3      youth, I really had tears flowing down my face
 4      because of her ability to speak with clarity, with
 5      energy, with courage, directly to these youth
 6      which she permitted to ask her some very, very
 7      good and very difficult questions.
 8                But she has told us for many years that
 9      we all need to mentor the youth and our children. 
10      Because as the 21st Century comes along, unless we
11      do that we are going to spend all of our tax
12      dollars in trying to build enough prisons to house
13      all of us.
14                Well, just as she is a mentor to youth,
15      she ought to know that she is a mentor for those
16      of us on the other end of the age spectrum,
17      because it's her courage, her integrity, her
18      creativity and her direct speak, as my son would
19      say, to the problems that we are facing in our
20      justice system which in many parts is really
21      crumbling on the edges.  And we need to look for
22      new forms.  We need make substantial changes for
23      the next century.
24                Our Attorney General is the 78th
25      Attorney General for our country, appointed by

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 1      President Clinton in March of 1993.  Born in
 2      Miami, Florida -- she still talks about when she
 3      retires she's going back to Florida.  Maybe we can
 4      convince her that California needs her more. 
 5      She's a graduate of Cornell University in
 6      chemistry, no less, and a graduate of the Harvard
 7      Law School.
 8                And when she came to her office she
 9      brought just a vast amount of experience.  She was
10      appointed by the Governor of Florida to be the
11      State Attorney for Dade County and then was
12      reelected to that position five successive times. 
13      She then became the Assistant State Attorney for
14      the entire state of Florida where she was the
15      Staff Director for the Judiciary Committee of the
16      House of Representatives.
17                It's very appropriate that she address
18      the SPIDR Conference because, as the youth heard
19      this morning, she has been a real pioneer and a
20      real inspiration in spreading the word about
21      appropriate forms of dispute resolution.
22                When she speaks to the American Bar
23      Association she says to lawyers, start thinking
24      about being problem solvers and peace makers as
25      opposed to being advocates.  When she speaks to

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 1      other groups she talks about -- especially
 2      legislators -- how we need to simplify our legal
 3      system so that ordinary citizens can know what the
 4      law is and often apply it to themselves directly.
 5                And she has been a champion of
 6      appropriate forms of dispute resolution, what most
 7      of us are now calling ADR, because it's not a
 8      alternative, it's part of a composite system.
 9                But in her own Department of Justice she
10      signed a very important order requiring in almost
11      25 percent of the civil cases that some form of
12      appropriate dispute resolution be used such as
13      mediation, arbitration, mini trials, early neutral
14      evaluation.  She is also having all of her civil
15      litigators trained in appropriate forms in dispute
16      resolution for all of her cases.
17                Most importantly for me, she has
18      inspired the federal judges in this country to
19      stand up, take notice, and begin to employ
20      appropriate forms of dispute resolution.  The
21      judges of my own court formed in the late 80s the
22      Western Justice Center which is dedicated to
23      improving the administration of justice and to
24      promoting appropriate forms of dispute resolution.
25                Since that time, and since she has

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 1      become Attorney General, because she has made it
 2      okay to be interested in something other than
 3      litigation we have had great success in creating a
 4      mediation model for the Southern California
 5      Association of Governments in partnership with the
 6      Pepperdine Law School and Dispute Resolution
 7      Incorporated of the L.A. County Bar.
 8                And we have a program called PACT,
 9      Peacefully Addressing Conflict Together, a program
10      for 21 schools, seven in Santa Monica, seven in
11      South Central L.A. and seven in my own home town
12      of Pasadena.  The Executive Director who just took
13      office September 1st is Bill Drake, the former
14      Vice President of the National Institute for
15      Dispute Resolution.  And Bill is here today.
16                So you can see why I am so excited about
17      having the privilege of presenting to you someone
18      whose life is dedicated to improving the
19      administration of justice and whose life is also
20      dedicated to the service of the world of humanity.
21                It is with a distinct pleasure that I
22      present to you the Attorney General of the United
23      States of America, the Honorable Janet Reno.
24                (Applause)
25                MS. RENO:  Thank you so much, Judge. 

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 1      And my thanks to you and to the other pioneers in
 2      this room, because I didn't get there first.  You
 3      all have led the way in so many different ways. 
 4                Just think of what you have
 5      accomplished, those of who you were in at the
 6      beginning.  This being the 24th annual conference,
 7      think of what you have accomplished in 24 years.
 8                I go back a little further and remember
 9      that I had Roger Fisher for Federal Rules of Civil
10      Procedure.  I don't think he mentioned
11      negotiation.  But since I graduated from law
12      school in 1963, you who have led the way, who have
13      pioneered, have taught me so much both at home in
14      Miami and in Washington.
15                You are teaching this nation how to
16      resolve disputes peacefully, without knives and
17      guns and fists, without bruising arguments that
18      leave people shattered, without costly litigation
19      that leaves people worse off than if they hadn't
20      gone to court in the first place.
21                You are teaching Americans how to solve
22      problems rather than to perpetuate them with
23      arbitrary solutions that don't get to the issues,
24      arbitrary solutions that simply cause the problem
25      to fester and grow worse.

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 1                You have taught us to seek to understand
 2      the views of others instead of confusing the issue
 3      with invectives and clouded reason.  You have
 4      taught us to seek the best in others, not the
 5      worst.  You have taught us to listen rather than
 6      to talk too much.  You have taught us to respect
 7      rather than to put people down and hassle them.
 8                The impact of your work, of all of you
 9      who have been involved in appropriate dispute
10      resolution, is beginning to be measured across the
11      country, in schools, in board rooms, in law
12      offices, in the courts and on the streets, and
13      particularly amongst our young people.
14                I have just been with a group of young
15      people that have more energy, more great ideas,
16      more hope for the future, and they are more
17      contagious than any group of people I have ever
18      seen.  Thank you for giving me that opportunity.
19                (Applause)
20                I take back their energy, their drive,
21      their sense of hope to a Department of Justice in
22      which we have attempted to apply all of your
23      wonderful work in appropriate dispute resolution.
24                Before I came to Washington I had
25      already concluded that litigation wasn't the only

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 1      way to do it.  I had watched too many people after
 2      trial look at themselves and conclude that they
 3      were worse off than if they hadn't gone to trial
 4      in the first place.  I had watched too many
 5      prosecutors feel they had won the conviction after
 6      avoiding a plea bargain and going to trial and
 7      getting the conviction and seeing the person
 8      sentenced and then seeing the person out in a
 9      third of the sentence because we didn't have
10      enough prison cells, and nothing had been done to
11      address the problem of the crime in the first
12      place so their offender repeated.
13                I have seen too many public defenders
14      claim that they have won the battle after they win
15      the motion to dismiss or the motion to suppress,
16      watching their client walk out of the courtroom,
17      though, in a prison worse than any prison we can
18      create, a prison of drug addiction, without doing
19      something about it.
20                And so it became clear to me that we
21      have got to look at how we solve the problem up
22      front whenever we can.
23                But I saw other aspects of litigation. 
24      I saw litigation just perpetuate the problem.  A
25      water dispute, a land dispute that went on and on

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 1      because we tried to resolve it with arbitrary
 2      procedures that did not go to the equities of all
 3      concerned.
 4                But most of all, ladies and gentlemen, I
 5      saw what I think is one of the great problems in
 6      America today, that too many Americans do not have
 7      access to justice, because the American Bar
 8      Association estimates that between 60 and 80
 9      percent of the poor and the working poor in
10      America, an increasing part of our population,
11      have no access to lawyers, much less to the
12      courts.  And for them the law is worth little more
13      than the paper it's written on.
14                Every single one of us, whether we be
15      Attorney General or a plumber or a single parent
16      struggling to make ends meet on a salary of
17      $15,000 a year, have disputes we have to resolve.
18                As Attorney General, I have got an awful
19      lot of lawyers.  The plumber may even be able to
20      afford a lawyer.  But there are millions of
21      Americans whose lives are eroded down to the nub
22      because they can't get the dispute with the
23      landlord solved, they can't get the problem with
24      social security worked out, they can't solve the
25      problem that will keep their kid out of trouble.

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 1                And so I have tried in these three and a
 2      half years I have been in office to do everything
 3      I could to focus on appropriate dispute
 4      resolutions.  At the Department of Justice we have
 5      tried to focus on a range of options and processes
 6      to resolve disputes.  We're beginning to train all
 7      our lawyers not just in mediation and how we use
 8      mediation, but how to negotiate the matter in the
 9      first place.
10                Two weeks ago I went to one of our first
11      negotiation training programs.  And it was so
12      encouraging to see trial lawyers encouraged by
13      what they were learning.  I told them that they
14      did not have to worry, that I still thought their
15      trial skills were important.  Because you can't
16      negotiate nearly as well as if you are not afraid
17      to go to trial, and that there were going to be
18      instances where we may well have to go to trial.
19                But we have also, in the middle of the
20      spectrum, tried to develop an array of dispute
21      resolution processes which Judge Nelson described. 
22      We have worked with mediation, early neutral
23      evaluation, mini trials, arbitration and
24      combinations of these processes.  If we tailor the
25      process to the dispute, we are learning in the

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 1      Department of Justice that we will get better
 2      solutions and more creative solutions and more
 3      long-lasting solutions.
 4                This past year the President issued a
 5      government-wide executive order urging all
 6      government litigation counsel to comply, and to
 7      employ ADR when it will lead to prompt, fair and
 8      efficient resolutions.
 9                I have created the position of Senior
10      Counsel for ADR to work with our attorneys.  And
11      Peter Steinland has done a wonderful job of
12      showing them that this is a marvelous tool, a new
13      and effective and potent arsenal in trying to
14      secure justice for all.  As Judge Nelson
15      indicated, he is working with U.S. attorneys'
16      offices across the country to train our lawyers in
17      all the tools available to us.
18                But he's doing more than that.  He's
19      reaching out to client agencies to teach them the
20      skills of alternative and appropriate dispute
21      resolution so that we can avoid the problem in the
22      first place and the case doesn't even get to the
23      courtroom, when possible.
24                I tell our trial attorneys that I value
25      their ability to settle cases just as much as I

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 1      value their ability to try cases or to pick a jury
 2      or to write a brief.  We have set aside funds
 3      solely for the purpose of hiring third party
 4      neutrals to resolve disputes that are in
 5      litigation.
 6                To underscore the importance of the
 7      skill we have included for the first time this
 8      year the use of ADR as one of the skills for which
 9      department attorneys may receive the prestigious
10      John Marshal award.
11                We have also had a chance to work with
12      the Executive Committee of the Judicial
13      Conference.  I have made it a practice since
14      taking office to meet with the Executive Committee
15      of the Federal Judicial Conference four times a
16      year.  And we have now started developing programs
17      and exploring what we can do with circuit
18      mediators to foster appropriate dispute resolution
19      throughout our court systems.
20                Lawyers can get stuck in the mud.  They
21      more than anybody else like to do things the way
22      they have always liked to do things.  And it
23      sometimes takes a bit of a show to make them
24      understand that they have got to be creative and
25      flexible and resourceful in finding solutions to

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 1      disputes.
 2                We have to overcome the suspicion, the
 3      hostility and the old ways of doing things to find
 4      common ground and common interests.  If we are to
 5      reach solutions that are fair to all sides on an
 6      enduring basis, we need to understand what caused
 7      the litigation in the first place.  We must
 8      address the issues of the parties and not focus
 9      solely on their positions.  And we must do more in
10      terms of the criminal process.
11                In most prosecutors' offices around the
12      country, 85 percent or more of the cases are
13      resolved without finally going to trial.  If we
14      can focus on problem solving, if we can focus on
15      the interest of all concerned, the victims as
16      well, we can do so much more in reaching lasting
17      solutions.
18                One young person from Canada asked me
19      about an hour ago, what are you learning from the
20      Canadians and what are you doing with the
21      Canadians.  About a year and a half ago I had the
22      opportunity to visit with the Canadian Minister of
23      Justice.  For the first time I heard about
24      sentencing circles.  Subsequently, I went to
25      Harvard Law School to hear a forum on tribal

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 1      justice and to participate.
 2                And to hear someone talk to me about our
 3      adversarial system that either goes to guilt or
 4      innocence but not to the problem, and to hear that
 5      person talk to me about the need to look at
 6      sentencing circles and to the tradition of native
 7      Americans who seek peace, who look to the problem,
 8      who look to resolve the problem; if we as lawyers
 9      in our system will just open our eyes and look
10      around and start looking at how we solve problems
11      in addition to how we win courtroom battles,
12      whether it be on the civil or criminal side, we
13      can be much more effective and contribute a more
14      lasting solution.
15                As I had indicated, though, we have
16      found that sometimes the federal agencies that we
17      represent do not identify their true interest
18      until well into costly litigation.  I have
19      discovered one reason why.  Many of their
20      judgments get paid out of the judgment fund and
21      not out of their appropriations.  And we need to
22      work on incentives to help them understand this
23      cause.
24                (Applause)
25                In many cases, of course, if we studied

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 1      it up front it is apparent that agency interests
 2      can best be secured by reaching a settlement as
 3      opposed to pursuing litigation.
 4                I discovered another problem.  Justice
 5      Department attorneys tell me, Ms. Reno, you don't
 6      know how hard it is to get approval all the way up
 7      to main justice for a settlement.  It's just
 8      easier to go to trial.  We're trying to change
 9      that.  That's easier said than done.
10                We are working with the federal agencies
11      and with our own lawyers to prevent some lawsuits
12      from being filed in the first place.  We have met
13      with the general counsel from the various
14      agencies.  We are trying to identify agencies that
15      are already doing a good job of investigating
16      their cases up front so that they know the value
17      of the case and know what everyone's interest in
18      the case is worth.
19                When this works they do not waste
20      taxpayers' money in needless litigation and we're
21      able to resolve the case early on.  We're using
22      them as examples for all federal agencies and I
23      expect that we will see some significant results.
24                But that still presents the question
25      that too often the average American doesn't even

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 1      see a federal courtroom, isn't even affected in
 2      their day-to-day lives by what happens in a
 3      federal court.  These are people that can't even
 4      get into small claims court.  They don't know
 5      where it is and they don't know how to work
 6      through the processes.
 7                But many of their disputes are with
 8      government.  And government can look beyond them,
 9      can talk to them in legalese, can talk to them
10      with forms that are confusing and duplicative and
11      frightening and scary.  And so what we have tried
12      to do in the Department of Justice and what the
13      President has tried to do is make government more
14      responsive to the people.
15                One of my favorite letters in the
16      Department of Justice is to a consumer, a consumer
17      of our services.  Dear so and so.  Thank you for
18      your letter in which you stated "A."  You also
19      stated "B."  In the end you stated "C."  We will
20      certainly take your views under consideration,
21      sincerely.  And that's the last that's heard.
22                I have seen people go to government
23      service offices where the line extends around the
24      block and they get tired and they go home and they
25      don't care.  All of us who work in government have

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 1      got to learn to run government like we would want
 2      it to serve our mother, our sisters, our brothers
 3      and the people we love.  
 4                (Applause)
 5                Yet, even if we perfect our ways there
 6      will be instances in which we can use mediation. 
 7      And it is important that we learn to use mediation
 8      in our day-to-day work to prevent too many
 9      Americans from walking away frustrated, upset and
10      confused and disenchanted with their government.
11                The Americans With Disabilities Act
12      provides a concrete example of how we're trying to
13      do some of this work, firmly and fairly and
14      without lawyers.  This is a marvelous act.  It's
15      given 48 million Americans with disabilities an
16      opportunity to walk through doors that were never
17      opened for them.
18                But I have had a chance to meet with
19      industry executives who are affected by the act. 
20      When first meeting with them they will tell you
21      they are terrified of the regulations.  They are
22      so complicated.  We have got to do something about
23      those regulations.
24                But to deal with this concern we have
25      sought to reach out and educate and assume that

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 1      people want to comply with the law.  We have tried
 2      to provide technical expertise and technical
 3      assistance to enable them to understand how to
 4      comply with the law.  And we have tried to frame
 5      it in terms that people can understand.
 6                Shortly after I took office I went to
 7      Tacoma Park, Maryland to see what a tiny town
 8      outside of Washington had done in terms of opening
 9      its drugstore, its city hall, its community
10      services and other community facilities to people
11      with disabilities.  You can do it smart; you can
12      do it reasonably, and it's not terrifying and it's
13      not complicated.  For that reason many doors have
14      been opened without even mediation.
15                But problems still arise and we have
16      developed a program to provide free mediation
17      services to those citizens who have asked the
18      department to assist them in resolving their
19      claims under the act.  We issued a grant to a
20      local foundation for mediation services.  The
21      program has been enormously effective with a
22      success rate of cases mediated of about 80
23      percent.  We are expanding the program over the
24      next year and urge your members to participate.
25                Now parties are requesting on their own

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 1      mediation of the Americans With Disabilities Act
 2      disputes.  This news should come as no surprise.
 3                Using dispute resolution techniques
 4      means that the parties are empowered to find their
 5      own creative solutions to resolving disputes and
 6      to solving the problem to everybody's
 7      satisfaction.
 8                In another area, one of my hero and
 9      heroine agencies of the Department of Justice is
10      the Justice Department's Community Relations
11      Service.  For over 30 years this wonderful
12      organization has helped communities resolve their
13      disputes in so many tense situations.  In the city
14      I love I have watched CRS representatives there in
15      the most difficult, tense and agonizing situations
16      bringing calm, bringing peace to a situation that
17      seemed irretrievable.
18                And even now after dramatic cuts by
19      Congress the CRS continues to do wonderful work to
20      ease tensions, whether they arise as the result of
21      a tragic church burning, disputes on Indian
22      reservations or disputes in our urban area.
23                In law enforcement we're trying to do
24      everything we can to perfect our negotiation
25      skills, to understand when we use mediation.  And

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 1      the resolution of the situation in Montana is an
 2      example of the commitment that the FBI has brought
 3      to this whole undertaking under the leadership of
 4      Director Freeh.
 5                In our community policing program as we
 6      attempt to put 100,000 community police officers
 7      on the streets, we're trying to develop a new
 8      spirit in policing, a policing that reaches out to
 9      the community, that involves the community the
10      police officer serves in identifying the problems
11      and establishing priorities and in working
12      together to resolve the conflicts before they get
13      really started.  Community police officers can be
14      such an important player in this whole effort to
15      achieve appropriate resolution of all our
16      disputes, sometimes just by manner and body
17      language, sometimes by tone of voice, sometimes by
18      sitting down and saying let's talk about it, we
19      can work it out.
20                And so, whether it's in that conference
21      room, that magnificent conference room at the
22      Department of Justice where Bobby Kennedy had his
23      office, or working out a problem with an employee,
24      the Justice Department is trying to use the tools
25      that you have led the way to put in the hands of

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 1      all Americans.
 2                We have learned so much from you and we
 3      have made so much progress, but we have so very
 4      much, much more to do.  When I came to office as I
 5      prepared for my confirmation and at my hearing, I
 6      told the Senate Judiciary Committee that I thought
 7      the single greatest crime problem in America today
 8      was the problem of youth violence.  I had seen too
 9      much of it in my own home community as a
10      prosecutor there.  I had looked at the figures and
11      seen the dramatic increase since 1985 and I was
12      troubled.
13                I realized early on after looking at
14      pre-sentence investigations and after tracing the
15      history of the child back to when they first came
16      into this world, that there were points along the
17      way where we could make a difference.  There
18      needed to be punishment, fair punishment that fit
19      the crime that people could have confidence in. 
20      But it made no sense to take that child and turn
21      them back from the juvenile detention facility to
22      the "Department Of The Open Air Drug Market" where
23      they got into trouble in the first place, where
24      they were again at war with the person that had
25      shot them and sent them to the juvenile detention

                                                           26
 1      facility or vice versa.
 2                We could do so much in terms of
 3      aftercare, in terms of dealing with victims and
 4      defendants in youth violence situations.  We could
 5      make a difference.  We could do so much in terms
 6      of addressing problems of treatment, of
 7      supervision.  But why wait until the crime is
 8      committed.  Why wait until the young person is
 9      gunned down.  Why wait until one who guns somebody
10      down goes to detention and loses their life as an
11      effective life for the rest of their life.  We can
12      do so much more if we prevent crime in the first
13      place.
14                We have tried to develop a comprehensive
15      program that balances punishment and prevention in
16      a proper way.  And we are seeing some results. 
17      The juvenile murder rate is down for the second
18      time this year.  The violence rate is down for the
19      first time.  But the number of young people in the
20      ages of 10 to 17 is going to increase
21      significantly in the next ten years.  What do we
22      do.
23                It is important that this nation invest
24      in its children, in its future, just as you have
25      done in this conference.  It is important that we

                                                           27
 1      listen to our young people and that we listen to
 2      them as they help us design a blueprint for the
 3      next century.
 4                We must make an investment in better
 5      education, in early childhood, in truancy
 6      prevention, in job preparation.  But your young
 7      people today showed me what I already knew but
 8      know better now after listening to them.  We have
 9      got to make a major investments in teaching our
10      young people how to resolve conflict without
11      knives and guns and fists.  And if we do, we will
12      make a difference.
13                (Applause)
14                The Department of Justice began working
15      in 1994 with the Department of Education to
16      develop a guidebook for schools and communities on
17      programs that worked in conflict resolution in
18      schools, in community-based organizations, in
19      juvenile detention facilities.  We are now
20      developing regional programs, the first of which
21      was held in St. Louis on October the 17th, to find
22      out how we can do this better, to evaluate what's
23      working and what's not working, and to work with
24      SPIDR and other groups to do everything we can to
25      get the message out.

                                                           28
 1                The message from the young people an
 2      hour ago was loud and clear.  We need to get the
 3      message out.  You need to tell the newspapers; you
 4      need to tell the police; you need to tell the
 5      school teachers; you need to tell the mayor; you
 6      have got to get the message out.  Because as they
 7      say, it works.  It's working for me.  Let's make
 8      it work for everybody.
 9                What impresses me so much is what the
10      young people can do.  And as part of these
11      regional programs we're having, when we write to a
12      school or a community-based organization and
13      invite them to the program we say come as a team
14      and bring a young person, they have so much to
15      say.
16                We have got to make sure that even -- we
17      have got to understand that the young people can't
18      do it by themselves, that teachers can make a
19      difference, that the police officer can make a
20      difference.  And these people are willing if only
21      we can get out and get them trained.
22                I, as part of my pro bono policy -- I
23      have encouraged Department of Justice lawyers to
24      contribute 50 hours aspirational, as an
25      aspirational goal of community service each year. 

                                                           29
 1      And I am working in community and school dispute
 2      resolution programs.  I am getting trained slowly. 
 3      And I am learning lots.
 4                But I am encouraging and promoting, in
 5      the schools of Washington and with teachers,
 6      dispute resolution techniques.  And three times
 7      this summer I went to a program in the DC public
 8      schools where teachers volunteered their own time
 9      for three days to come in and learn mediation and
10      dispute resolution techniques.
11                It is so encouraging to see a teacher
12      who's used common sense suddenly begin to grin and
13      say, Oh, yes I see how that works, and see people
14      willing to give their time to teach that teacher
15      how to resolve disputes in an effective manner. 
16      It's just wonderful.
17                Think of what we can do if we train
18      every teacher, every police officer, every parks
19      and recreation specialist, every child care
20      worker.  Just think of what we can do.
21                But we have got to teach our children so
22      that they don't need the mediator in the first
23      place.  We have got to teach them to resolve their
24      conflicts without knives and guns and fists.  We
25      have got to do so much in terms of preparing them

                                                           30
 1      for the world.  And if we do, we have got to look
 2      to those days earlier than the school.
 3                When the crack epidemic hit Miami I had
 4      to figure out what to do with the crack-involved
 5      infants and their mothers.  The doctors took me to
 6      the public hospital and to the babies in the
 7      nursery which was overflowing with babies who had
 8      not been talked to or held except when changed or
 9      fed, babies who were not beginning to react with
10      human emotion although the child across the room
11      who had terrible birth defects was beginning to
12      respond to parents who were with her around the
13      clock as much as possible.
14                And the child development experts taught
15      me something that has held me in good stead ever
16      since I came to Washington.  The most formative
17      time in a person's life is zero to five.  The
18      concept of reward and punishment and conscience is
19      developed during that time.  Fifty percent of all
20      learned human response is learned during that
21      time.  What good are all the prisons going to be
22      18 years from now unless we invest in children in
23      those early years.
24                (Applause) 
25                What good are all of your marvelous

                                                           31
 1      training programs going to be for an angry young
 2      man at 11 years old who's never developed a
 3      conscience or understood or been held or talked to
 4      or supported or raised right.  All America has got
 5      to join together to make an investment in those
 6      early years.
 7                And in looking at your program I was so
 8      gratified to see zero to five on there.  And it is
 9      so wonderful in the last three weeks in Washington
10      to have found two people that are specializing in
11      conflict resolutions programs for zero to five.
12                (Applause)
13                But even if we do right by our children,
14      violence is a learned behavior.  And too many of
15      our children in America today are learning
16      violence from what they see in the home.
17                This nation in 1994 made a major
18      commitment to violence against women and domestic
19      violence.  But we have got to take all of the
20      tools that you are developing and with renewed
21      effort go to parents, go to families and provide
22      mediation centers and dispute resolution centers
23      that are immediately and automatically available
24      to help parents and families resolve their
25      disputes before, or if we're ever to resolve

                                                           32
 1      disputes on the streets or in the schools of this
 2      nation.  But based on all that you have done I
 3      know we can do it.
 4                What are my dreams for the 21st Century. 
 5      Look at what you have done in 24 years and think
 6      of what it will be like 24 years from now.  Maybe,
 7      just maybe, you will have your 48th annual
 8      conference in Miami.  And as I told the young
 9      people a little bit ago, I'll be an 82-year-old
10      little, old lady that walks into the back of the
11      room and listens to maybe the Attorney General of
12      the United States talking about what you have
13      done.
14                And what I expect that I will hear is
15      that you and the young people I heard earlier
16      today will have led the way to ensuring that every
17      teacher, every police officer, every businessman,
18      every lawyer, every person in America has been
19      trained, as we have trained them to read and write
20      and to do basic arithmetic, in resolving disputes
21      without knifes and guns and fists and bruising
22      arguments and costly lawsuits and battles that are
23      not worth it.
24                I expect that I will hear that there are
25      mediation programs -- not as many as you might

                                                           33
 1      think we need because you have done such a
 2      wonderful job of teaching people how to resolve
 3      disputes -- but there will be mediation programs
 4      that are immediately available to families that
 5      are in crisis, to children that are in detention
 6      facilities.  But I urge you because I hope I don't
 7      hear when I sit in the back of the room that we
 8      have created a whole new bureaucracy to replace
 9      the bureaucracy of the courts.
10                (Applause)
11                But that what we have done is take what
12      we have and weave it together in community setting
13      after community setting so that we serve the
14      people directly and with our heart and our soul.
15                But I will be interested because I will
16      not understand fully what we have done to face the
17      new challenges.  Communities will be ever more
18      important to us in this next century.  It will be
19      what we hang on to.  Family will be ever more
20      important.  It will be what we hang on to.  But as
21      community and family we will be as one with a
22      world, a world that will be linked by technology
23      that we never dreamed of, a world that can put
24      conflict at our doorstep in a moment, a world that
25      can present us with the most extraordinary

                                                           34
 1      challenges of understanding, but a world that has
 2      opportunities that we never dreamed of
 3      communicating.
 4                I hope that we will take the skills that
 5      you are forging in your pioneering efforts and
 6      learn how to use Cyberspace, learn how to use the
 7      Internet, learn how to communicate the worldwide
 8      round in peace and not in conflict.
 9                I will be watching from the back of the
10      room to see how we have come to deal with the fact
11      that we can be anywhere in the briefest period of
12      time, and that this world in terms of crime, in
13      terms of migration, in terms of the environment,
14      in terms of the economy, in terms of trade, in
15      terms of health care, is linked as it has never
16      been linked before.  Communities and people will
17      have to all be part of a world that is dedicated
18      and committed to a century of peace because of
19      your pioneering efforts.
20                I think that little, old lady in the
21      back of the room is going to be mighty happy.
22                (Applause)
23                VOICE:  It's my great honor to speak on
24      behalf of all of you in the room in thanking the
25      Honorable Janet Reno for a remarkable address that

                                                           35
 1      gives great dignity not only to her personal
 2      understanding of the field of dispute resolution
 3      but a passionate conviction and commitment to the
 4      development of the field.
 5                It's easy to say no; it takes great
 6      courage to say yes.  But it takes a remarkable
 7      person with leadership, wisdom and energy that
 8      inspires people to find ways to have the courage
 9      to say yes.  And we're fortunate that we have
10      leaders who can speak in such plain but powerful
11      terms about problem solving, about listening and
12      respect that can send a message out in ways that
13      almost nobody could fail to understand.  And for
14      that, for having an ambassador, a voice, a
15      spokesperson at the very highest levels of
16      authority present before us today is truly a great
17      honor to the organization.  And I am deeply
18      grateful.
19                (Applause)
20                I wanted to present the Attorney General
21      with this plaque.  The plaque reads, "The Society
22      of Professionals In Dispute Resolution,
23      presidential recognition of the United States
24      Attorney General Janet Reno for her outstanding
25      commitment and work in the field of dispute

                                                           36
 1      resolution, October 1996."  And a fine moment for
 2      SPIDR. 
 3                (Applause)
 4                (At 1:54 p.m., the meeting was
 5           concluded.)
 6
 7
 8
 9
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                                                           37
 1                          CERTIFICATE
 2      STATE OF CALIFORNIA    )
 3                             ) ss.
 4      COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES  )
 5
 6                I, DARYL BAUCUM, CSR No. 10356, a
 7      resident of the County of Los Angeles, State of
 8      California, declare:
 9                That the foregoing proceedings were
10      taken before me at the time and place herein set
11      forth, at which time the aforesaid proceedings
12      were stenographically recorded by me and
13      thereafter transcribed under my supervision; and
14                That the foregoing transcript, as typed,
15      is a true record of the said proceedings.
16                IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have subscribed my
17      name this 18th day of October, 1996.
18
19
20                     ____________________________
21
22                Daryl Baucum, CSR No. 10356
23
24
25