October 2026⸻Justice for the Soul and Health for the Body
Identity, Credentials, Core Values and Practice Areas
Praxis Forum was created to provide fair, effective and accessible Alternative Dispute Prevention and Resolution services to underserved populations at a greater risk of experiencing health inequities, social injustice, economic poverty, or discrimination due to structural barriers that limit access to foundational resources and opportunities.
Time-Honoured Preventive and Curative Methods
Praxis Forum provides nationwide Alternative Dispute Prevention and Resolution services, with a special dedication to underserved populations. For these communities, our Neutral Third-Party Advisory Service focuses primarily on Health Equity and Social Justice.
Process, Methodology and Customization
Alternative Dispute Prevention and Resolution delivers a proven, structured framework for problem-solving and variance management. This methodology actively eliminates cost and time inefficiencies while protecting corporate assets, shareholder value, proprietary resources, and critical partnerships.
Mission, Vision and Efficiencies
In recent years, the complex, progressive and violent nature of conflicts indicates that previous attempts at preventing and controlling destructive disputes and ideological clashes have failed and are no longer sufficient to ensure peaceful and productive local and global communities. Praxis Forum is a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of education and research in Alternative Dispute Prevention and Resolution, with a focus on promoting non-dual, non-violent, human rights-based, non-symptomatic and therapeutic approaches directed at eliminating or reducing risks and correcting imbalances.
Early Intervention, Active Disputes, and Post-Dispute Programs
Initially established in 2016 as a federally incorporated Alternative Dispute Prevention and Resolution practice, Praxis Forum provides independent, impartial, and uncorrupted services to public and private organizations. The firm utilizes neutral third parties to manage and resolve complex, sensitive, or long-standing commercial, institutional, and operational issues. This is achieved through early intervention, active dispute resolution, and post-resolution programs.
Safeguarding the Spirit of Justice
Our practice delivers high-intervention, high-empathy Alternative Dispute Prevention and Resolution. Rather than remaining passive observers during power imbalances or organizational alignment breakdowns, we actively step in. By combining a strict commitment to systemic integrity with a deep understanding of human dynamics, we protect the collaborative environment.
Reconciliation is defined as "the renewal of amicable relations between two persons who had been at enmity or variance; usually implying forgiveness of injuries on one or both sides." Reconciliation is viewed, in general, as a profound restorative process. It goes beyond settling a dispute to repair the underlying relationship itself. In constitutional or human rights law, it involves resolving deep historical grievances.
Conciliation is defined as "the adjustment and settlement of a dispute in a friendly, un-antagonistic manner." It is commonly used as a method of Alternative Dispute Resolution to help parties reach an agreement before escalating to trial or arbitration.
Rapprochement is termed as "an establishment or resumption of harmonious or friendly relations, especially between countries." In general, it is primarily a political and diplomatic term rather than a technical legal one. When used in a legal or international law context, it is defined as the re-establishment of a harmonious or friendly relationship between parties, most commonly sovereign nations, after a period of estrangement or conflict.
Settlement is broadly defined as "an agreement ending a dispute or lawsuit." Historically and across distinct editions, it is further framed as an arrangement where parties with disputed matters reach a compromise to determine what is coming from one to the other, terminating a controversy in consideration of mutual concessions.
Compromise is defined as "an arrangement arrived at, either in court or out of court, for settling a dispute upon what appears to the parties to be equitable terms, having regard to the uncertainty they are in regarding the facts, or the law and the facts together". It is heavily emphasizes that a compromise is an agreement born out of mutual consent where each party adjusts their difficulties by making concessions, preferring a guaranteed middle ground, preferring a certain outcome over the gamble of a trial, where the potential for victory is offset by the risk of total defeat.
Harmonization is defined as the process of changing differences on different measurements, procedures, or schedules to make them uniform and compatible. In a broader legal and statutory context, it refers to bringing different laws or legal systems together into a harmonious state by aligning unique aspects to ensure consistency, agreement, and smooth interaction. Rather than completely erasing or replacing unique legal traditions, harmonization focuses on reconciling friction points so that separate frameworks can function cohesively without contradiction.
The term adjustment is broadly defined as the determination of an amount due, the settlement of a claim, or the bringing of something into a proper relation or alignment.
A claim encompasses the assertion of an existing right, a demand for money or a legal remedy, and the operative facts giving rise to an enforceable right. Ultimately, it represents the legal demand used to obtain possession, enjoyment, or compensation.
The term resolution has multiple distinct definitions depending on the specific legal context. In matters of legislative practice and public assemblies, a resolution is a formal expression of an opinion, intention, or decision by an official deliberative or legislative body, public assembly, town council, or board of directors. While a "resolution" is the ultimate goal or outcome of an agreement, Black's Law Dictionary defines Alternative Dispute Resolution as a formal "procedure for settling a dispute by means other than litigation.
The term determination carries two primary legal definitions depending on the context of the case or property in question. In a court of law, a determination is the formal decision, judgment, or decree of a court of justice. In the context of estates, property, or legal rights, a determination refers to the ending, expiration, or bringing to a close of an estate, interest in property, right, power, or authority.
The term self-determination primarily describes a principle of international law and constitutional governance: "The fundamental right of every person to freely decide on their own political status and to pursue their own choice of economic, cultural and social development."
Recovery is defined in its most extensive sense as "the restoration or vindication of a right existing in a person, by the formal judgment or decree of a competent court at his instance and suit, or the obtaining, by such judgment, of some right or property which has been taken or withheld from him".
An inherent right is defined as "one which abides in a person and is not given from something or someone outside itself". It is a right that an entity or individual possesses purely by virtue of their existence or essential nature, rather than a privilege granted by an external authority, government, or positive law.
Standard 1―Fairness
Disputes cause deep suffering because they threaten our fundamental biological survival instincts, social identities, and psychological security. Disputes inflict financial ruin, emotional distress, physical harm, and damaged reputations. To insulate participants from these four distinct vectors of ruin, dispute resolution must build targeted safeguards and relief mechanisms directly into the procedural timeline.
Standard 2―Conflict of Interest
Context matters in dispute resolution because it transforms a rigid, legalistic process into an effective, human-centric solution. Without context, a resolution forum treats a dispute as an isolated, mathematical problem rather than a complex human crisis. Thus, resolution services cannot operate effectively if they ignore this human suffering. When dispute resolution systems ignore suffering, they do not just fail to resolve the conflict, they become an active participant in it.
Standard 3―Loyalty
In traditional civil justice systems, primarily rooted in the common law tradition, the designation of a lawyer as an "officer of the court" establishes that a practitioner is not merely a private agent for hire, but a vital institutional component of the state's judicial machinery. This status imposes overriding public duties that constrain the bounds of private advocacy.
Standard 4―Adaptability
Injecting empathy into justice transforms rigid legal procedures into dynamic protective tools. Injecting empathy into justice dismantles the myth that procedural neutrality requires emotional detachment. When empathy is codified into the design, it transforms rigid rules, which often function as institutional weapons, into dynamic protective tools that bend to support the human being under stress.
Standard 5―Innovation
When the ultimate focus shifts from strictly following rules to actively reducing harm and restoring dignity, the entire definition of "success" in a dispute resolution process is rewritten. In a traditional system, success means a closed file, a signed order, and a cleared docket, regardless of the human wreckage left in its wake. In a dignity-first framework, success means the stabilization of human crisis and the minimization of systemic violence.
Standard 6―Objectivity
Traditional legal design uses spatial hierarchy to induce compliance through fear. Integrating the genius loci of justice into procedural design means transforming legal spaces from rigid, intimidating structures into environments focused on revealing truth, healing, community safety, and dignity. This transformation is the precise point where architectural philosophy meets human rights. When we treat the spirit of the place, not as a historical artifact, but as a living mandate for healing and dignity, we fundamentally change how justice feels, operates, and performs.
Standard 7―Restoration
Systemic trauma is inflicted when the process itself acts as an unyielding wall, punishing participants for the chaotic realities of poverty, instability, or crisis. By embedding harm reduction into the very mechanics of dispute resolution procedure, we shift the system’s primary directive from legal processing to trauma mitigation.
Standard 8―Dignity
Treating human suffering as the core variable in the dispute resolution process, completely flips the neurobiology of negotiation. When a person experiences severe trauma, financial ruin, or deep humiliation, their brain shifts into a survival state dominated by the amygdala. In this state, cognitive processing drops, the ability to assess long-term risk shrinks, and defensive posturing skyrockets.
Standard 9―Excellence
Wrapping dispute resolution in care requires us to move past a purely legalistic framework, to design a trauma-informed ecosystem. The process treats human suffering not as a distraction to be managed, but as the core variable influencing how the parties make critical decisions that will impact process outcomes. When a dispute resolution process protects physical and psychological safety, it directly unlocks the cognitive processing required for complex decision-making, thus optimizing the cognitive environment.