Competitors looking forward to participating in this weekend's Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) competition received a surprise on Thursday October 1st when the board accidentally sent out an email containing confidential information to competitors. What was supposed to be secret information for competitions was instead circulated  among competitors, who were shocked and dismayed at the mistake and the immediate reaction by the board.

The ADR Board, an honorary society that promotes student interest and cultivation of dispute resolution skills, hosts its annual in-house Negotiations Competition each fall. Competitors pair up and receive confidential information to use in a mock negotiation with another pair of competitors. Competitors are graded by student judges who are already on the board and, after the competition, selected students are offered to join the 160-member organization.

Nota Bene obtained the email notifying competitors of the mistake early Thursday afternoon from a competitor. The competitor noted that the email noting the problem was sent out 14 minutes after the original email. This second email requested that students refrain from reading the confidential information, but did not contain any information concerning corrective action being taken by the Board. Two hours later, the Board sent an email notice to all competitors that the problem would be rewritten and the rewritten problem was emailed out at 7:45pm.

When asked for comment, the ADR Board responded,  "Unfortunately, an email containing confidential information for judges was inadvertently sent to competitors early Thursday afternoon.  The ADR Board learned of its error immediately and issued a new problem to all competitors via email and distributed in hard copy at the Records Office later the same afternoon.  Issuance of a new problem was necessary to preserve the integrity of the competition as a whole."

While the ADR Board apologized to competitors for the error, student reaction to the mistake ranged from respectful to disappointed. 2L Anika Keswani said, "Although I was surprised that the initial reaction of the ADR board was to simply hope competitors hadn't read the attachments (after having 30 minutes before the email went out to do so), I was impressed with how quickly they turned it around and provided new scenarios for everyone. The end result was good but there were a couple of hours where I wasn't sure if they be able to have the competition at all - after all that work!"

Other competitors believed that the mistake reflected poorly on the competition. A 2L who wished to remain anonymous stated, "I think the mistake was an honest one but it goes to show that these competitions should not be run by law students. I mean if you have so little attention to detail that you allow such a major mishap to occur, how exactly do you expect to become an effective lawyer?"

The competitor went on to say, "I think the result will be that people will not take this competition as seriously as last year. I competed last year and I can tell you that I thought that this competition was a big deal and that it would have been a major accomplishment to have gotten selected for the board. Now I think most people will think of it as a silly student-run competition that is not any sort of indicator as to a student's ability to negotiate."

Another competitor gave credit the ADR Board for eventually taking corrective action to ensure a fair competition by distributing a new problem. "[I]t was the right call to rewrite the problem and so I commend them from that."

Dean David Johnson , Senior Assistant Dean for Student Affairs, echoed this sentiment. "The ADR Board was mortified to realize they made this error.  While they would have loved to have just taken back the e-mail that was solely meant for the judges, they moved swiftly to distribute a new problem to the competitors."

Though some competitors complained that the distribution of a new problem gave competitors too little time to meet, Dean Johnson said, "If they moved the competition to another weekend and started over, there will always be competitors that can't compete then, so that approach seemed flawed... However, at least all competitors are on the same page (i.e., they all have less time to prepare).  Moreover, there is not any legal research involved with the preparation, so hopefully it will not prove to be that much of an additional hardship.  I agree with the Board that this is the best solution, although I understand it is imperfect."

"Ultimately," Dean Johnson concluded, "we are all human, and we all make mistakes.  How you respond is most important.  The ADR Board knows they made an error and have moved quickly to fix it in the best way possible."