Kenneth Cloke Papers

Kenneth Cloke (1941- ) is a Southern California-based pioneer in the area of alternative dispute resolution. He received his B.A at the University of California, Berkeley, and graduated with a juris doctor degree from Berkeley’s Boalt Hall in 1966. He earned a Ph.D. in History at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Master of Laws degree from the UCLA Law School. He has done post-doctoral work at Yale University School of Law, and is also a graduate of the National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada. In the 1970s and 1980s he worked as an Administrative Law Judge for the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board and the Public employment Relations Board, and was Judge pro tem for the Superior Court of Los Angeles. Since the 1980s, he has served as an Arbitrator in labor management disputes. He has taught subjects such as history, conflict studies, urban studies and other subjects at colleges such as Antioch University, Occidental College, Southwestern University School of Law, UCLA, and University of Southern California. As of this writing he is an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University School of Law and Harvard University School of Law.

In the 1980s, Cloke began to explore mediation as a means to solve disputes in ways less adversarial than possible with traditional courtroom-based methods. In 1986, he co-founded the Center for Dispute Resolution (CDR) in Santa Monica, California, and has served as director since its inception. He has explored and expanded the use of mediation and conflict resolution techniques into many areas, including divorce and child custody, workplace and grievance issues, sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuits, school complaints, neighborhood tensions, and international conflicts. He is also currently the director of Mediators Without Borders, an international organization he co-founded in 2006.

In addition to a large number of journal articles (many included here), Cloke has published a number of books, including Mediation: Revenge and the Magic of Forgiveness (1994), Mediating Dangerously: The Frontiers of Conflict Resolution (2001), and The Crossroads of Conflict: A Journey into the Heart of Dispute Resolution (2006). He has also co-written, with longtime collaborator Joan Goldsmith, Thank God It’s Monday! 14 Values We Need to Humanize the Way We Work (1996), The End of Management and the Rise of Organizational Democracy (2001), Resolving Personal and Organizational Conflict: Stories of Transformation and Forgiveness (2001), The Art of Waking People Up: Cultivating Awareness and Authenticity at Work (2003), Resolving Conflicts at Work: Eight Strategies for Everyone on the Job (2005).