Designing Justice: Legal Institutions and Other Systems for Managing Conflict

Lisa Blomgren Bingham, Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs

Abstract

This article argues that lawyers are designing justice through institutional and dispute system design, but that we are neither training law students for their new role nor are we having a deliberative discussion of the nature of justice these systems provide. First, I briefly introduce the field of institutional analysis and design in social science. Second, I describe the field of dispute system design (DSD) and apply elements of institutional analysis. Third, I survey how scholars have discussed varieties of justice in relation to legal institutions and other systems for managing conflict. I conclude that we should move more knowingly and intentionally to assess justice in DSD, and that we owe it to the next generation of lawyers to teach them how to serve ethically in their new role as designers of justice.