Director's Update

Harry C. Katz is the Director of the Scheinman Institute and the Jack Sheinkman Professor of Collective Bargaining.

This semester I oversaw a special course that gave students the opportunity to develop and practice their conflict resolution skills under the guidance of three ILR alumni. The 1 credit course involved students in simulated baseball player final offer arbitration.

Students were prepared for the simulations by participating in two night zoom lectures delivered by Alex Gimenez (who works for the Boston Red Sox), and Adam Lupion and Joshua Fox (lawyers, who work for Proskauer and represent a number of baseball teams). Demand for the course was high and we were able to involve 40 students as either mock arbitrators or representatives arguing on behalf of either a player or a team.

With Alex’s help the student teams had access to both real and simulated data on four players who will be eligible for arbitration this winter.  Professor James Gross kindly joined one of the class sessions to share his experience as a real baseball arbitrator. Where else can students gain such an educational experience? The students performed so well that Alex, Josh, and Adam were determined to find internship opportunities within major league baseball for several of them.