Professors Stephanie Blondell and Sandy Jo Macarthur Present "Best Practices in Trauma-Informed Legal Education" -- 2025 ABA Dispute Resolution Section ADR Conference

Professor Stephanie Blondell and adjunct professor and retired assistant chief of the Los Angeles Police Department Sandy Jo Macarthur, BA, MDR, Psy.D, presented "Best Practices in Trauma-Informed Legal Education" at the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution Conference in Chicago, Illinois. They were joined remotely by adjunct professor Deanna Parish, lecturer of law at Harvard Law School.

About  "Best Practices in Trauma-Informed Legal Education" 

The current generation of students in legal education expect that professors preemptively and thoughtfully manage material through the lens of trauma-informed classroom instruction. Whether the content is gun violence, sexual assault, or generational/ethnicity-based trauma, resources are available. This program includes an overview of trauma and the trauma response, an exploration of the tension between student needs and faculty freedom of expression, and a workshop on best practices.

Section 1 will be led by Chief Macarthur Psy.D with research from her dissertation around trauma. It will include a psychological overview of trauma, and the trauma response. This is the statement of the problem from the lens of science.

Section 2 will be led by Professor Blondell, Faculty Director. She will frame the institutional needs. How do we balance student need with academic freedom articulated by faculty? How do you educate a faculty on trauma (adjunct or full-time) given the unique individualistic culture of law schools? What are best practices in the classroom? And from the Deans Suite?

At the end of this program, attendees will 1) understand the impact of trauma on adult student populations. 2) discuss the balance between sensitivity to student needs and academic freedom of expression 3) use best practices to workshop potential solutions presented to classroom challenges.

Providing classroom instruction that includes trauma-informed best practices is increasingly important in higher education. Research has found that 85% of surveyed college students had experienced at least one traumatic event in their lifetime, and one in five students experienced a traumatic event while in college (Fraisier, 2009). Factors that have engendered a need for intentional awareness of the impacts of trauma in the classroom include the following: the pandemic, increased attention to the importance of mental health, a more robust community dialogue on race-based and other types of generational trauma, the incidence of gun-related mass shootings, and changing expectations with the entry of the Y/Alpha generation into the classroom.

Additional information about the conference may be found at 2025 ABA Dispute Resolution Section Spring Conference