Pepperdine University School of Law

Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution

Training and Conferences

Mediating the Litigated Case Programs

Professional Skills Programs


Ranked #1 by U.S. News and World Report for 2008

In addition to the academic program, the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution offers professional skills training for off campus constituencies. The Institute has provided negotiation, mediation, and dispute resolution skills training programs for law firms, bar associations, governmental agencies, judiciary, and community groups. The entertaining presentation style, participatory format, and frequent use of simulated exercises to reinforce learning points, has caused the Institute's training programs to be in very high demand. While most of the Institute's training programs are provided in-house for employees of the sponsoring organization, programs open to the public are sometimes available under the auspices of organizations such as California's Continuing Education of the Bar, the Rutter Group, and state bar associations in Washington, New Mexico, and Texas.

The Institute also regularly offers professional education programs for MCLE credit on a full range of dispute resolution topics and advanced applications for mid career attorneys, judges, and other professionals. One of the most popular of these programs is Mediating the Litigated Case, a six-day program offered two or three times a year. In addition, every summer the Institute offers a collection of simultaneous three-day programs on various aspects of negotiation, mediation and arbitration. Next summer this program will be offered in June 2008. Dates and a complete listing of the courses offered will soon be posted. To view, click on "21st Annual Professional Skills Program". New this year is a fall East Coast Professional Skills Program, co-sponsored by Vermont Law School. Six courses will be presented in Woodstock, Vermont, on October 4-6, 2007.

In addition to its extensive domestic agenda, the Institute has been able to be of service on five other continents. The Institute has provided technical assistance and mediation training to neutrals from MARC, Argentina's largest for-profit dispute resolution provider, both in Buenos Aires and in Malibu. Institute personnel have trained mediators in Holland's NETLAW, a consortium of eighteen prominent law firms throughout the Netherlands. The Asian Development Bank selected the Institute to provide training and assist the Indian government in establishing dispute resolution centers in New Delhi, Bombay and Hyberabad. Institute personnel have conducted programs in Australia and Russia as well as intervened in disputes in Kenya and Ghana. The Institute has hosted Fulbright Scholars from Tunisia and the Czech Republic. In the fall of 1996, the Institute provided a five-day mediation skills training for a United States Information Agency project bringing together Arabs and Jews in Israel.

If you would like information on our academic programs (Certificate, Masters Degree or LL.M.) please refer to Academics.

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