L. Michelle LeBaron

Professor of Law and Director, UBC Program on Dispute Resolution

LL.B. UBC 1980; M.A. SFU 1990; B.A. Chapman University 1977

Tel: 604.822.1830
Fax: 604.822.8108
E-mail: lebaron@law.ubc.ca
Office Location: West Mall Swing Space Building (WMSS): 2175 West Mall #507-15

Profile

Michelle LeBaron is a tenured professor at the UBC law faculty and is Director of the UBC Program on Dispute Resolution. She joined the Faculty of Law in 2003 after twelve years teaching at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and the Women's Studies program at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. From 1990-1993, she directed the Multiculturalism and Dispute Resolution Project at the University of Victoria. Professor LeBaron has lectured and consulted around the world on cross-cultural conflict resolution, and has practised as a family law and commercial mediator. She was called to the Bar of British Columbia in 1982 after articling at Campney and Murphy in Vancouver.

Professor LeBaron's most recent book is Conflict Across Cultures, with co-editor Venashri Pillay of ACCORD (South Africa) and colleagues from three other world regions. She continues to pursue research into creativity, the arts and multiple ways of knowing as resources for bridging cultural differences.

Professor LeBaron enjoys running, hiking and yoga and the rich learning opportunity of parenting four children. She writes poetry and creative non-fiction and spends as much time as possible near the ocean.

Professor LeBaron is a board member of the Margie Gillis Dance Foundation and the BC Mediation Roster Society.  She is the UBC-Ritsumeikan Scholar for 2009-2010 and will be teaching a course in Kyoto, Japan.

Courses

• Fundamentals of Cross-Cultural Dispute Resolution Theory and Practice
• Theoretical Foundations of Dispute Resolution
• Negotiation and Conflict Resolution
• Transnational Law

Research Interests

• Cross-cultural Conflict Resolution
• Law, Legal Culture and Conflict Resolution
• Conflict across Worldview Differences
• Creativity and Conflict
• Ritual, Narrative, Metaphor and Conflict
• Gender and Conflict
• Spirituality, Religion and Conflict
• Teaching Innovation and Effective Teaching and Learning

Representative Published Works

• Shapesifters and Synergy: Toward a Culturally Fluent Approach to Representative Negotiation.  In The Theory and Practice of Representative Negotiation.  Hanycz, C, Farrow, T and Zemans, F. (Eds.)  Toronto: Emond Montgomery. 2007.
• Conflict Across Cultures. A Unique Experience of Bridging Differences.  Boston, MA: Nicholas Brealey Publishing. 2006
• "Learning New Dances: Finding Effective Ways of Addressing Intercultural Disputes", in Catherine Bell and David Kahane (Eds.) Intercultural Dispute Resolution in Aboriginal Contexts: Canadian and International Perspectives . Vancouver, British Columbia: University of British Columbia Press, 2004.
• "Windows on Diversity: Lawyers, Culture, and Mediation Practice", co-authored with Zena Zumeta, Conflict Resolution Quarterly 20(4), Summer 2003: 463-472.
• Bridging Cultural Conflicts: A New Approach for a Changing World . San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2003.
• Bridging Troubled Waters: Conflict Resolution from the Heart . San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2002.
• "Why the Foreign Matters in Foreign Affairs: Cultural Understanding in Policy Processes", co-authored with Jarle Crocker, Harvard International Review , Fall 2000: 54-59.

Publications listed on the UBC Law Library Faculty Research Publications Database