Who We Are

Chris Honeyman	Julie Macfarlane	Bernie Mayer	Andrea Schneider	Jeff Seul

Convenor's consultants are all highly experienced professionals with widely-recognized track records of sophisticated practice work as well as original thinking in our field. We are regularly engaged as consultants by firms and programs which themselves have to maintain a reputation for expertise in our field; we will be glad to provide examples on request. Our consultants are also routinely invited to serve as keynote speakers at professional conferences; to address faculty groups as well as students at some of the world's most distinguished universities; and to participate in cutting-edge research design.

Chris Honeyman (Managing Partner) has served as a consultant to numerous academic and practical conflict resolution programs in the U.S. and abroad, and as a mediator, arbitrator and in other neutral capacities in more than 2,000 disputes since the 1970s. He is lead external consultant for ADR Center (Rome), the largest dispute resolution firm in continental Europe, where his particular focus is on design of ADR Center's multinational projects in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean. Previously, from 2004-2008 he served as evaluator to a team of six U.S. and European law schools funded by the U.S. Department of Education and the E.U.'s equivalent agency to design better methods of aligning American and European teaching of negotiation and other forms of ADR. From 1990-2006 he was director of an extensive succession of Hewlett Foundation-funded R&D programs of national or international scale, including Broad Field (2002-2005), Theory to Practice (1997-2002) and the Test Design Project (1990-1995.) Chris is co-editor of Rethinking Negotiation Teaching; co-editor of, and author or co-author of eight chapters in The Negotiator's Fieldbook (ABA 2006); and author or co-author of more than 50 published articles, book chapters and monographs on dispute resolution infrastructure development, ethics and quality control. He is currently co-chair of the ABA's Committee on Negotiation.

Julie Macfarlane (Consultant) is Professor of Law at the University of Windsor. She devotes half her time to her academic role and half to her consulting and training practice, and is an experienced mediator who has mediated more than 400 disputes including business, workplace, organizational, contract, tort, special education and public administrative matters. In 2005 Julie became the first Canadian recipient of the International Academy of Mediators’ Award of Excellence, presented annually to an individual mediation practitioner. Over more than ten years, she has provided mediation training for legal practitioners, law students, civil servants, union and management groups, aboriginal council members, legal aid workers and health care professionals. Julie  is a contributing author in The Negotiator's Fieldbook and she has researched and written extensively on dispute resolution and in particular on the role of lawyers, including a widely used student textbook, many articles in scholarly journals, and numerous program evaluations for government agencies. Her newest book The New Lawyer: How Settlement Is Transforming the Practice of Law (UBC Press, 2008) analyzes an emerging major shift in legal practice toward more collaborative and constructive approaches, and her current research examines the structure and uses of Islamic courts as a largely unpublicized dispute resolution system across Canada.

Bernie Mayer, Ph.D. (Consultant) is a professor at the Werner Institute of Negotiation and Dispute Resolution, Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska. Bernie was one of the founding partners of CDR Associates in Boulder, Colorado. He has worked since the late 1970's as a trainer, mediator, facilitator, researcher, program administrator, and dispute systems designer. He has consulted on conflict management and trained mediators, negotiators, and conflict resolvers throughout the United States and Canada, and also in Australia, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Indonesia, England, Ireland, Switzerland, South Africa and New Zealand. Bernie has taught courses for many universities including Harvard University, the University of Warsaw (Poland), the Budapest College of Economics (Hungary), The Central European University (Budapest) and Hamline University Law School. Bernie is a contributing author in The Negotiator's Fieldbook and the author of many books and articles including Staying with Conflict: A Strategic Approach to Ongoing Disputes (Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2009), The Dynamics of Conflict Resolution: A Practitioner's Guide (Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2000) and Beyond Neutrality: Confronting the Crisis in Conflict Resolution (Jossey-Bass/Wiley, 2004). He is the lead author of Constructive Engagement Resource Guide: Practical Advice for Dialogue Among Facilities, Workers, Communities, and Regulators (Washington, DC: US EPA, 1999).

Andrea Schneider (Consultant) is Professor of Law at Marquette Law School, where she teaches ADR, negotiation, international law, international conflict resolution and art law. Previously, she was Visiting Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the Elliot School of International Affairs at George Washington University, as well as an Associate at Arent Fox in Washington, D.C., where she specialized in international corporate transactions. She has also served as a lecturer at Stanford Law School and a Teaching Fellow at Harvard Law School. Andrea is co-editor of, and author or co-author of four chapters in The Negotiator's Fieldbook. She is also co-author of Beyond the Adversarial Model (Aspen, 2004, with Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Lela Love & Jean Sternlight); Beyond Machiavelli: Tools for Coping with Conflict; and Coping with International Conflict (both with Roger Fisher.) Andrea is also the author of Creating the Musée d'Orsay: The Politics of Culture in France. She regularly conducts negotiation and mediation trainings for law firms, bar associations, court systems and companies, such as Oracle, MCI, the Smithsonian Institution, and the American Association of ADR Attorneys. 

Jeff Seul (Consultant) is a partner in the international law firm Holland & Knight, based at its Boston office. Jeff has extensive experience in corporate matters (including mergers and acquisitions) and intellectual property issues. He regularly advises senior management and boards of directors on significant transactions and decisions. Prior to joining Holland & Knight, Jeff was Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of Groove Networks, a software company founded by Ray Ozzie (who created Lotus Notes and is now Microsoft's Chief Software Architect, the position formerly held by Bill Gates.) Jeff's work at Groove included key business management and strategic roles as well as legal functions, including a leading role in the negotiation of the company's sale to Microsoft. Jeff has also served as an arbitrator or mediator in a wide variety of disputes, and he has taught courses on negotiation and constructive, problem-solving approaches to lawyering at Harvard Law School, where he developed the law school's first advanced course on complex, multiparty negotiations. Jeff is a contributing author in The Negotiator's Fieldbook, and his articles on negotiation and conflict resolution have also appeared in the Journal of Peace Research, the Ohio State Journal of Dispute Resolution, Washington Law Review, the Handbook of Dispute Resolution, and other publications. He is Vice Chairman of the Appeal of the Nobel Peace Laureates Foundation.