Robert Bordone

Robert Bordone, Senior Fellow, Harvard Law School

Robert C. Bordone is a senior fellow at Harvard Law School and is founder The Cambridge Negotiation Institute. Previously, he served on the full-time faculty at Harvard Law School for more than 20 years as the Thaddeus R. Beal Clinical Professor of Law. He also served as director and founder of the Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program and as visiting clinical professor of conflict transformation at the Boston University School of Theology. He taught several courses at Harvard Law School including the school’s flagship Negotiation Workshop.

In 2007, Professor Bordone received The Albert Sacks-Paul Freund Teaching Award at Harvard Law School, presented annually to a single member of the Harvard faculty for teaching excellence, mentorship of students, and general contributions to the life of the Law School.

His research interests include the design and implementation of dispute resolution systems, the development of a problem-solving curriculum in law schools, and ADR ethics. Professor Bordone is the co-author of Designing Systems and Processes for Managing Disputes (2d ed., 2019), The Handbook of Dispute Resolution (2005) and Conflict Resilience: How to Change When You Can’t Change People (2025). Professor Bordone is the co-editor of The Handbook of Dispute Resolution (Jossey-Bass, 2005), recipient of the 2005 Book Award from the National Institute for Advanced Conflict Resolution, awarded to a book published in the United States that shows the best promise of promoting and contributing to the field of conflict resolution. He has published articles in leading dispute resolution journals including the Harvard Negotiation Law Review, the Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution, and Negotiation Journal.

Bob currently serves on the board of directors for Seeds of Peace, the advisory board for the Catholic Common Ground Initiative, on the pastoral council of The Paulist Center in Boston, on the board of advisors for the Center for Empathy in International Affairs, as senior advisor to the National Institute for Civil Discourse, and on the LGBTQ+ Commission for the City of Cambridge, MA. Professor Bordone has also worked in the corporate, governmental, and non-profit sectors for clients such as Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

Professor Bordone received his A.B. from Dartmouth College and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.