Lodestar Mediation Clinic

By the end of the semester, students will:

• Develop mediation skills through direct participation in both simulated and real mediation sessions.
• Improve skills in listening, questioning, problem solving, persuasion, negotiation and professional judgment.
• Apply legal and ethical frameworks relevant to mediation practice, including confidentiality, neutrality, informed consent and self-determination.
• Understand mediation theory and integrate it with practice by linking doctrinal knowledge, negotiation principles and dispute resolution theory with hands-on experience including with technology.
• Increase your appreciation of the advantages and disadvantages to mediation and litigation as dispute resolution mechanisms.
• Understand the lawyer’s role in ADR processes, including advocacy in mediation, counseling clients and designing dispute resolution systems.
• Foster your professional identity to be consistent with the values of fairness, access to justice and collaborative problem-solving.
• Enhance reflective lawyering skills by analyzing their performance, mediator interventions and party dynamics.

Students who participate in the Lodestar Mediation Clinic will:

• Identify and apply relevant statutes, rules and ethical standards governing mediation practice.
• Articulate how mediation practice informs a broader conception of lawyering and justice.
• Demonstrate effective communication skills, including active listening, reframing and summarizing.
• Become a qualified Maricopa County Justice Court Mediator.
• Shadow and co-mediate with professional mediators from the EEOC and judges conducting settlement conferences for the Maricopa County Superior Court.
• Mediate a federal sector EEOC claim as a capstone project under the supervision of one of the course instructors.
• Upon completion of the course, students will receive a certificate signifying completion of a 40-Hour Mediation Training Program, the training standard to be a professional mediator.

Students are expected to do a minimum of 180 hours of clinical work during the semester.

• Students must attend a three-day pre-semester training program the week prior to the start of classes before class begins. Please note your calendar and hold those days open in the event you are offered a seat in the clinic. Note: These training days will not be rescheduled if it conflicts with the administration of the MPRE.
• Classes meet twice weekly. 
• Mediations will be scheduled on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays beginning three or four weeks after classes begin. Students are strongly advised to block one of those days in full and at least one half-day in order to conduct their mediations.   
• EEOC and Superior Court mediations may last most or half or the entirety of the working day and are often over Zoom or Teams.

Note: Most Justice Court mediations occur at various courthouses outside of walking distance from the law school. Access to a means of transportation to travel to and from the courthouses is critical.

The Mediation Clinic is a one-semester course.

• Credits: four graded credits.
• No pre - or co - requisites.
• Enrollment is limited to six students.
• Students must be able to pass a background check per Maricopa County Justice Court regulations.
• Students have the option of enrolling in a one-credit Independent Study to complete their graduation writing requirement. Registration instructions will be provided during the first week of classes.

Note: Students enrolled in the Mediation Clinic will be required to travel to local Maricopa County Justice Courts in order to participate in mediations. Students are responsible for their own transportation and must have access to a personal vehicle, as they are expected to drive themselves to court locations. While there are a few exceptions, it is not expected that mediations will take place over Zoom.

The Mediation Clinic takes returning students only in exceptional circumstances.