A global ADR interview and book project
50 conversations about how experienced dispute-resolution practitioners make difficult judgments.
Every experienced practitioner develops a body of knowledge that is difficult to find in textbooks: what to notice, when to intervene, when to wait, how to recognise when a process is genuinely stuck, and when a familiar technique simply does not fit the people or problem in front of you.
Judgment in the Room is an international book and filmed interview project built around conversations with approximately 50 experienced practitioners across mediation, conciliation, negotiation, facilitation, arbitration and related forms of dispute resolution.
The aim is not to identify a single “best” way to practise. It is to record the reasoning behind difficult professional choices, including the places where highly experienced practitioners legitimately disagree.
Why this project
Much of the most valuable knowledge in ADR is tacit. It is developed through years of difficult conversations, mistakes, reflection, supervision and repeated exposure to conflict. It often passes informally from one practitioner to another and much of it is never recorded at all.
This project is an attempt to capture some of that hard won judgment while experienced practitioners are still practising: not only what they do, but what they are noticing, what concerns them, what alternatives they consider and what makes them choose one course over another.
The result will be a thematic book that places practitioner perspectives alongside one another so readers can see patterns, differences, exceptions and the reasoning beneath them.
The project at a glance
The conversations
Why contribute?
Being invited is not about appearing in a collection of profiles. The value of the project depends on contributors being willing to explain the judgment behind their practice.
For contributors, it is an opportunity to place hard-won experience into a serious professional record; to contribute to the learning of practitioners who follow; to make legitimate differences in practice visible; and to reflect on how the profession is changing while that change is occurring.
Contributions will be attributed. Where suitable, selected professionally edited extracts may also be provided to contributors for their own professional channels.
No contributor is expected to disclose confidential case information. The project is interested in professional reasoning, anonymised experience and practice judgment without identifying parties or matters.
From conversation to the page
Judgment in the Room is designed to preserve more than conclusions. It seeks to capture the experience, instincts and judgment behind the choices experienced practitioners make.
A filmed conversation may inform the written book, attributed quotations and, where appropriate, source-linked video extracts — allowing readers to move from the written page to the practitioner explaining the thinking in their own words.
Illustrative example
“The moment I become most cautious is often the moment everyone else in the room thinks we are closest to agreement.”
Alex Morgan
Mediator · London
Illustrative contributor
For Morgan, the question is not simply whether the parties are close enough to settle. It is whether the apparent convergence reflects a durable change in their positions — or merely the pressure of the moment.
That distinction can change what the mediator does next.
One conversation. More than one form.
The purpose is not simply to record interviews. It is to preserve experienced professional judgment in forms that can be read, heard, explored and returned to.
A contribution may inform the book and, where appropriate, attributed extracts across the wider Rezolva professional archive — while preserving the practitioner’s identity, context and voice.
Why now?
Dispute resolution is changing quickly. Online and hybrid processes are now normal in many settings. Client and institutional expectations are evolving. Artificial intelligence is beginning to alter research, preparation, communication and professional workflows.
That makes this an unusually important time to ask experienced practitioners two questions at once: what has experience taught you that remains enduring, and what do you believe is about to change?
The book will therefore look both backwards and forward preserving accumulated professional judgment while asking contributors what the next decade may demand of the profession.
Companion material
A 90-minute conversation necessarily contains more than can appear in a book.
Longer-form attributed video, audio and transcript material from the interviews is therefore intended to be preserved online as a companion to the book, allowing readers and practitioners to hear more of the contributor’s reasoning in their own voice and to explore additional perspectives that cannot fit on the printed page.
The purpose of the companion material is simple: the book provides the edited conversation; the archive preserves more of the voices behind it.
Master of Laws · More than 16 years in dispute resolution
Fellow, Singapore Institute of Arbitrators
Melbourne, Australia
About the interviewer
Sam Lawson is an Australian dispute resolution practitioner with more than 16 years' experience across mediation, conciliation, arbitration and related dispute-resolution work.
He holds a Master of Laws and is a Fellow of the Singapore Institute of Arbitrators, a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and a Professional Member of Resolution Institute. He has also taught ADR at tertiary level and mentored dispute resolution practitioners.
Judgment in the Room grew from his interest in the professional judgment experienced practitioners develop over a career and how more of that knowledge might be recorded and passed on.
For invited contributors
The interview is designed as a professional conversation rather than a promotional profile. It will normally run for approximately 90 minutes and combine a common set of comparative questions with questions tailored to your field, career and particular experience.
Filming and production are organised and funded by the project. Before recording, you will receive a plain-English contributor consent and release explaining how your interview and approved extracts may be used. You will also have an opportunity to raise factual, transcription, confidentiality or material context concerns through the contributor review process.
The objective is to make participation straightforward and respectful of your time while preserving your contribution at a professional production standard.