April 6, 2026

Harbingers of Peace: 25 Years of the LL.M. in Dispute Resolution

by Tanner O’Neal Riley In 1999, the University of Missouri School of Law established the first LL.M. in dispute resolution program in the United States. At a time when most graduate law degrees focused on tax, finance or intellectual property, Missouri charted a different path: training lawyers not just to litigate disputes, but to resolve them. The choice was radical. The program grew out of intellectual groundwork laid years earlier at the Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution, founded in 1984. Under leaders such as Len Riskin and later Professor John Lande, the center pushed legal education to confront…