A Jewel in Our Midst

Throughout the history of legal education, there has been a consistent call for greater levels of experiential learning and especially clinical education in the law school curriculum. This call has received renewed strength in the Carnegie Report released in 2007. It reminds us again of the importance of building skills for lawyering, for serving as counselors to those who seek our assistance.

Marquette University Law School, for over thirteen years, has been polishing a gem that provides our students with a rich opportunity to some of the very skills required to be an effective lawyer (you might remember the list from the first blog…communication, listening, writing, negotiation and time management, to list only the top five survey responses). This gem is the Small Claims Mediation Clinic.

The Small Claims Mediation Clinic is housed in the Milwaukee County Courthouse and provides pro se litigants an opportunity to access student-led mediation services in an effort to resolve the disputes themselves. This program was the brainchild of former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janine Geske and I have had the honor and privilege to work with Janine at the Clinic for several years and have served as the faculty member for a number of semesters.

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Mandatory Foreclosure Mediation: A Good Idea?

The Florida Supreme Court has ordered a review of its 18-month-old mandatory foreclosure mediation program.  Should a similar process come to Wisconsin?

In July 2011, Wisconsin had the 10th highest foreclosure rate in the United States, only four spots behind the State of Florida.  Several initiatives in Wisconsin have attempted to inject mediation into the foreclosure process, with varying amounts of success.  Purely voluntary processes are flailing – with lenders refusing across the board to even attend the voluntary mediations.  More suggestive processes are seeing varying amounts of success.

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A Plea for E.N.E.

One of the oldest maxims in writing is to never apologize for your work.  With that said, I do need to couch this article.  I stand by my premise 100%.  However, there are always exceptions to a rule.  One of my biggest influences in mediation is a former judge, and former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice.  I am not saying that a judge cannot mediate, but that you need to go in with your eyes open.

Too often when litigators are choosing a mediator (or even worse when a sitting judge is ordering mediation at a scheduling conference) the conversation goes something like, “So, should we use Judge X or Judge Y?”  What does being a former judge necessarily have to do with being a mediator, let alone a good mediator?

As the late great comedian Mitch Hedberg said,

When you’re in Hollywood and you’re a comedian, everybody wants you to do things besides comedy. They say, “OK, you’re a stand-up comedian — can you act? Can you write? Write us a script?” . . .  It’s as though if I were a cook and I worked [] to become a good cook, they said, “All right, you’re a cook — can you farm?”

I am certainly not the first to recognize this disturbing trend. 

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