Carol Liebman

Carol B. Liebman

  • Clinical Professor of Law Emerita
Education

J.D., Boston University, 1975
M.A., Rutgers University, 1963
B.A., Wellesley College, 1962

Areas of Study
Areas of Specialty

Negotiation 
Mediation
Legal education

Carol Liebman is Clinical Professor Emerita of Law at Columbia Law School where she founded Columbia’s Mediation Clinic and the Negotiation Workshop. Liebman is an internationally recognized speaker and trainer in conflict resolution. She has designed and presented mediation training for a variety of groups, including the Certificate Program in Bioethics at Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine; New York’s First Department, Appellate Division, Attorney Disciplinary Committee; the New York City Bar Association; and high school students, parents, and teachers. She has taught about negotiation and mediation in Vietnam, Brazil, Israel, and China, and has mediated cases involving medical malpractice, discrimination, family issues, public agencies, community disputes, business conflicts, and educational institutions.

Liebman’s current research focuses on conflict resolution in health care. She is co-author of Mediating Bioethics Disputes: A Guide to Shaping Shared Solutions, 2011, revised and expanded edition. She is a former member of New York City's Civilian Complaint Review Board and of the New York City Bar Association’s executive committee. She was co-principal investigator of the Mediating Suits against Hospitals (MeSH) project, along with the Demonstration Mediation and ADR Project, a part of the Project on Medical Liability in Pennsylvania. From 1976 to 1979, Liebman served as counsel for the Massachusetts Department of Corrections.

In 2012, Liebman received the Columbia University Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching.

Publications

  • Bioethics Mediation: A Guide to Shaping Shared Solutions, (with Nancy N. Dubler), Vanderbilt University Press, 2011, (revised and expanded edition)
  • “Interest Based Mediation of Medical Malpractice Lawsuits: A Route to Improved Patient Safety?” (with Chris Stern Hyman, Clyde B. Schechter and William M. Sage), 35 Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, October 2010
  • “Medical Malpractice Mediation: Benefits Gained, Opportunities Lost,” 74 Law & Contemporary Problems 135, 2011
  • “Autonomy and Diminished Capacity,” (Ellen Waldman, ed.), comment in Mediation Ethics Cases and Commentaries, Jossey-Bass, 2011
  • “Medical Error Disclosure, Mediation Skills, and Malpractice Litigation: A Demonstration Project in Pennsylvania,” (with Chris Stern Hyman), The Project on Medical Liability in Pennsylvania, (funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts)
  • “Words that Heal,” (with Douglas Frenkel), Annuals of Internal Medicine, March 2004
  • “A Mediation Skills Model To Manage Disclosure of Errors And Adverse Events to Patients,” (with Chris Stern Hyman), 23 Health Affairs 22, July/August 2004
  • “Disclosure and Fair Resolution of Adverse Events,” (with Chris Hyman, Medical Malpractice and the U.S.; and Sage and Kersh, eds.)  Cambridge University Press, 2006
  • “Mediation as Parallel Seminars: Lessons from the Student Takeover of Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall,” Negotiation Journal, April 2000
  • “The Profession of Law: Columbia Law School’s Use of Experiential Learning Techniques to Teach Professional Responsibility,” 58 Law and Contemporary Problems 73, 1995
  • “Toward a Theory of Negotiation, in Negotiating for Settlement in Divorce, (Sanford Katz, ed.), Prentice Hall Law and Business, 1987
  • “Negotiations in the Divorce Context, Family Dispute Resolution: Litigation and the Alternatives,” (James G. McLeod, ed.), Carswell, 1987