Robert C. Bordone

Biography

Most students at Harvard Law School know Professor Bob Bordone as the lead instructor for Harvard Law School’s flagship Spring Negotiation Workshop. In 2007, the graduating class selected Bob as the recipient of the Albert Sacks-Paul Freund Teaching Award, presented annually by the student body to one member of the Law School faculty for their teaching excellence, mentorship of students, and general contributions to the life of the Law School. He was a finalist for the same award in 2012, one of only three faculty members in the history of the school to be a finalist for the award two times. Bob also teaches, at various times, courses on dispute resolution, leadership, dispute systems design, and multi-party negotiations. He is Founding Director of the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program, which the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR) selected to be the recipient of its 2010 Problem Solving in the Law School Curriculum Award. He also serves as a Member of the Executive Committee for the Program on Negotiation and teaches in their Harvard Negotiation Institute and the Senior Executive Education seminars.

As a professional facilitator and conflict resolution consultant, Bob works with individual and corporate clients across a spectrum of industries. He specializes in assisting individuals and groups seeking to manage conflicts in highly sensitive, emotional, or difficult situations. His corporate clients have included Premera Blue Cross, Health Net, Gap, Inc., Fidelity Investments, Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Delta Air Lines, Exelon, and Microsoft. In addition, he has worked on projects with nonprofit, educational, governmental and cultural institutions such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Massachusetts General Hospital, Princeton Regional Schools, Dartmouth College, Fort Wayne, Indiana Schools, the U.S. Department of Justice, the United Way, the International Criminal Court at The Hague, DePaul University, and the Vienna School of Economics and Business Administration.

In addition, he has taught negotiation to attorneys at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, the National Association of Realtors, and the international law firms of Weil, Gotshal, & Manges, LLP, Freshfields, Braukhaus, & Deringer, Lowenstein, Sandler, LLP, Crowell & Moring, LLP, Shearman & Sterling, LLP, and Clifford Chance, LLP.

Bob’s research interests include the design and implementation of dispute resolution systems, the development of a problem-solving curriculum in law schools, and ADR ethics. Bob is co-editor of The Handbook of Dispute Resolution, (Jossey-Bass, 2005), recipient of the 2005 Book Award from the National Institute for Advanced Conflict Resolution. Along with Nancy Rogers, Craig McEwen, and Frank E.A. Sander, Bob is currently writing Designing Systems and Processes for Managing Disputes (Aspen, 2013). Bob has also authored a number of articles including “Negotiation Teaching in Law Schools,” a working paper published in Negotiation Pedagogy: A Research Survey of Four Disciplines, 11 (2000); “Teaching Interpersonal Skills for Negotiation and for Life” in the Negotiation Journal (October 2000) and “Electronic Online Dispute Resolution: A Systems Approach—Potential, Problems, and a Proposal,” 3 Harv. Neg. L. Rev. 175 (1998). He has written numerous case simulations used in Harvard negotiation courses and at other American law schools, and his writing and commentary have appeared in various print and broadcast media outlets including The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, CNN’s Situation Room, and BBC Radio.

A summa cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College, where he majored in Government, and a cum laude graduate Harvard Law School, Bob clerked for the Honorable George A. O’Toole, Jr. of the United States District Court for Massachusetts. He has also worked at the Washington D.C.-based law firm of Crowell & Moring, the New York-based law firm of Cravath, Swaine, & Moore, the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Boston Consulting Group. He is a member of the bars of NY, NJ, and the District of Columbia.

Bob currently serves as the Associate Editor of the Negotiation Journal and as a member of its Editorial Advisory Board. He is also a member of the advisory board of the Harvard Mediation Program and is faculty adviser to the Harvard Mediation Program, the Harvard Negotiation Law Review, Harvard Negotiators, HLS Lambda, and the HLS Catholic Law Students Association. He also serves on the Board of Visitors of the William Jewett Tucker Foundation at Dartmouth College.

As the Director of HNMCP, Bob is responsible for the overall functioning of the clinic, and directly supervises some of the clinical projects.

Areas of Interest

• Dispute Resolution: Alternative Dispute Resolution
• Dispute Resolution: Negotiation
• Dispute Resolution: Dispute Systems Design
• Dispute Resolution: Conflict Management
• Dispute Resolution