Biography

Jean Sternlight is a professor emerita of the UNLV Boyd School of Law who served as the founding director of the Saltman Center for Conflict Resolution. A member of the Boyd faculty since 2003, Sternlight is internationally recognized for her scholarship and law reform activities in the field of dispute resolution, specifically both litigation and alternatives to litigation including arbitration, mediation and negotiation.   

In particular, Sternlight is frequently cited by courts and the press as an expert with respect to "mandatory" arbitration, the practice whereby companies require employees and consumers to resolve disputes through private arbitration rather than in public courts. She has criticized this practice on both legal and policy grounds in numerous books and articles and in Congressional testimony. She argues that companies are using mandatory arbitration to deprive consumers and employees of access to attorneys and access to court, for example by preventing them from joining together in class actions.

Sternlight also focuses on improving legal education. She argues that it is important to blend both theory and practice. Her most recent book, Psychology for Lawyers: Understanding the Human Factors in Negotiation, Litigation and Decision Making, Second Edition (American Bar Association, 2012), argues that lawyers who know about psychology can be more effective in interviewing, counseling, negotiation, writing, and courtroom performance.