Norwegian Judge Knut Petterson to Lecture At UND School of Law

“Reflections from the bench.  What does the world look like through the judge's spectacles?”
Judge Knut Petterson
Tuesday, February 26, 2008, 4:15p.m., Baker Courtroom

Norwegian Judge Knut Petterson will present a public lecture titled “Reflections from the bench.  What does the world look like through the judges spectacles?” on Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at 4:15 in the Baker Courtroom at the UND School of Law. 

The lecture is free and open to the public.  A reception will follow. 

Judge Knut Petterson graduated from University of Oslo, Faculty of Law 1977; Postgraduate studies in Scots law, University of Edinburgh 1981. He worked 3 years as a deputy judge and 7 years as an attorney in private practice.

He was appointed judge in 1990, and has been a district judge in the Oslo district court since then, increasingly focused on alternatives to the traditional legal processes in civil and criminal matters.Since 2006, he has worked part of the year as a judge in a district court in central area of the Saami (indigenous) people in the very north of Norway.

Judge Petterson was trained in Alternative Dispute Resolution by the Harvard Project on Negotiation in Norway in 1998 and 1999.  He is a member of the board of Nordic Forum for Mediation and Conflict Management 2002-2006, and a co-organizer of two conferences on Mediation in Helsinki, Finland and Skövde, Sweden. He participated in the project “Court Dispute Resolution International,” a video conferencing mediation program for commercial disputes run by Subordinate Courts of Singapore and is a member of a Commission reorganizing the Norwegian Mediation service.  He has trained judges in mediation, in Norway, Iceland and Albania, as well as law students and attorneys in Norway since 2000.  Judge Petterson enjoyed a sabbatical in 2006, studying Restorative Justice with the main focus on Peacemaking Circles. 

In addition to the lecture, Judge Petterson will participate in a panel discussion on restorative Justice, lecture in a variety of UND courses and will make additional visits around North Dakota.