University law clinic takes on mediation

It was a bad night on the nursing home wing for incontinence.
Understaffed and underpaid, Nurse Phoebe was trying to clean up all 10 of her patients without any help. Allie, a resident’s daughter, arrived to find her mother in a mess and approached Phoebe about it.
Allie’s comments were the last straw for Phoebe, who was frustrated by Allie’s constant complaining. The women met again Friday in mock mediation, where two mediators-in-training helped the characters sort out their issues.

The role-play was part of a three-day basic mediation training session through the Mediation Center of Charlottesville. The latest session was held at the University of Virginia’s law school, where students received training as part of the new Family Alternative Dispute Resolution Clinic.
Patrice Kyger, the center’s acting director, said the 20-hour basic mediation course the clinic participants underwent will provide them with mediation basics and positive and reflective listening skills. The course prepares people to co-mediate cases referred from juvenile and domestic relations courts.
Kimberly Emery, the law school’s assistant dean for pro bono and public interest, said she was inspired to create the clinic because of the difficulties families have getting a lawyer to represent them pro bono in custody cases.
“Alternative dispute resolution is a low-cost alternative to litigation that gives people some options outside of the courtroom,” Emery said.

Out-of-court solutions include mediation and collaborative law, during which lawyers and clients create a settlement.
For the first half of the year-long clinic, students will observe the center’s mediators and a co-parenting class. Emery, who is co-teaching the clinic with law professor Richard D. Balnave, said the students will receive a short collaborative law training session in the second half of the clinic before representing a client of the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society who is going through a divorce.
With the help of volunteer mediators from the center last week, the clinic’s students and five community members learned how to approach topics and guide people through the mediation process in a positive way.
Dave Szwedo, a fourth-year doctoral student in psychology who is auditing the clinic, said he has gained a different perspective on family and couples therapy through the clinic.
“The law focuses on facts,” Szwedo said. “I’m trained to work through feelings. I feel this is a fusion of both angles.”
The mediation training also has been helpful for Chelsea Stine, a third-year law student in the clinic.

“We’ve learned how to handle and respond to people,” Stine said. “I’m learning [law students are] trained not to do that. We’re taught facts. In the middle of role-play, that goes out of the window.”
Emery said mediation and collaborative law can ease stress on the invisible members of family conflicts —children.
“The worst thing for a kid is conflict between parents,” Emery said. “Part of the focus for the family is to recognize how important it is to keep the level of conflict down.”