Typical Student Practice

This fall, two legal interns mediated a case involving misdemeanor criminal charges and property damage. The dispute involved two West Indian women who became competing business women in the community and who had ended their long friendship despite overlapping relationships among their extended families. This mediation resulted in their adoption of some guidelines for future interaction.

Together with her faculty supervisor, another legal intern mediated a case involving claims of discrimination based on age, ethnic origin, and disability. This case involved a series of negotiations with the employer’s in-house counsel, employer’s private outside counsel, the union’s legal counsel, the complainant’s attorney and the complainant. After these negotiations, the complainant was fully reinstated to his position with retroactive benefits and salary.

Legal interns work on a range of projects that directly assist ongoing work in the field or that help build the Mediation Clinic.

Past projects include:

• Drafting policy memos for mediation programs
  
  
• Drafting portions of the Mediation Clinic Manual
  
  
• Researching and evaluating pilot juvenile victim-offender mediation program
  
  
• Providing community outreach and education for the Clinic's Mediation in Employment Discrimination Project