Penn State Law students receive valuable mediation training

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Penn State Law students partnered with a mediation center recently to learn what one might call a lawyer’s “bedside manner,” his/her ability to mediate between parties. The Center for Alternatives in Community Justice, a nonprofit mediation center that provides training in conflict-resolution skills, provides service to attorneys, counselors, teachers, ministers, and anyone else who might be court-ordered to administer mediation.

While an attorney’s job is to focus on the facts of the case and how they pertain to the law, he/she must also know how to employ mediation skills to help stabilize the emotional side of a case. The mediation training introduced students to the structured mediation process and the importance of maintaining balance, neutrality, and confidentiality between parties.

Mediation centers on respect for all individuals, with a goal of seeking a resolution that is mutually beneficial to all parties. In the legal realm this can be challenging, as one student noted, because you may be required to defend a party with whom you don’t feel morally aligned. Attorneys must be willing to acknowledge the natural human tendency for bias, and choose not to act on personal biases out of reverence for the law.

The Penn State Law program with the Center for Alternatives in Community Justice gives students an opportunity to assist community public-interest service providers with mediation services, while they acquire training in mediation and dispute resolution, communication skills, confidentiality, mediator ethics, and special circumstances. The yearlong program requires 24 hours of training and participants earn a certificate of completion and substantive law credit.