Education and Training
Training Programs and Seminars
Contact:
Prof. Elizabeth McCullough
(BIO)
Director of the Center
843.377.2425
emccullough@charlestonlaw.edu
Autumn Buckmon
Assistant to the director
843.377.2454
abuckmon@charlestonlaw.edu
EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS FOR STUDENTS
The Educational Programs provided by the Center are designed to enhance the Dispute Resolution Curriculum offered to students at The Charleston School of Law and to support continuing legal education for the bench, the bar and leaders and institutional leaders and their employees.
A. Dispute Resolution Externship
The faculty approved Externship Program at The Charleston School of Law is based on a hybrid externship/clinical model. Second and third year students at the Law School may enroll in the Externship Course and earn academic credit by working in the field for licensed, practicing attorneys or judges (the "sites"). Externship sites include a number of courts, governmental offices, non-profit organizations and educational institutions. The Externship Program partners with certain sites to provide, in addition, an external clinical experience where students work closely with designated practitioners in their respective areas of the law. The Externship Program continues to work with the Center to expand opportunities for students to extern with attorneys who focus on dispute resolution as a profession as well as attorneys who work with or for other non-profit, educational, governmental and corporate sites and regularly use collaborative problem solving.
B. Ninth Circuit Family Court Mediation Externship for Qualified Students
South Carolina Appellate Court Rule 401, the Student Practice Rule, now affords qualified students the opportunity to mediate in a court-annexed, supervised programs. The Center, in conjunction with the School of Law's Externship Program and members of the bench and local bar, has developed a Family Court Mediation Externship where qualified students will observe and mediate in the local Family Court under the guidance and supervision of Judge F.P. Segars-Andrews, local members of the Family Court Bar and faculty from the School of Law. The externship opportunity will be offered each semester beginning with the 2009 Summer Semester.
C. Additional Student Mediation Opportunities
The Center, in conjunction with the bench and the local bar, is reviewing possible mediation opportunities for students in the local Magistrate's Court.
The Center is researching additional opportunities in the community for qualified students to practice their mediation skills to include public education forums.
D. Dispute Resolution Projects with Healthcare, Governmental and Banking Institutions
With the guidance of the Center's consultant, the Center is working to develop relationships with healthcare, governmental and banking institutions where students may help survey institutional dispute resolution needs, draft proposed individualized dispute resolution mechanisms or models, assist in the implementation of the models, and design and help implement accountability tools to follow the long-term success of the models. The program is being used as a model and focal point for Center seminars.
TRAINING PROGRAMS AND SEMINARS
A. Law Students: 40 Hour Civil Mediation Training:
The Center offers each year for rising and existing third year law students a 40-hour Civil Court Mediation Training Program approved by the Board of Arbitrator and Mediator Certification (the "Board") (see SC Court-Annexed ADR Rules). The training will address dispute resolution theory, skills, techniques and application. The training will be held immediately prior to the Fall and Spring semesters. This training will be required before students may assist in the resolution of conflicts under the South Carolina Appellate Court Rule 401, the Student Practice Rule. It is important to note that completion of the training satisfies one step towards achieving full certification as a mediator or arbitrator by the Board, which certification gives attorneys the right to have their name placed on a Civil or Family Court roster of certified mediators. The SC Court-Annexed ADR Rules, however, consider persons to be eligible to be "neutrals" with no certification if parties to the dispute being mediated or arbitrated agree that they have the training and experience necessary to mediate or arbitrate the issues in the action. Therefore, the Board approved 40-hour Civil or Family Court Mediation Training Programs will enhance students' mediation and arbitration skills whether they desire to be placed on a list of certified mediators in the future or are asked to mediate matters where the parties believe they are trained to do so after graduation.
B. Practitioners:
The Center has developed and will offer 3 to 5 day training programs, both basic and advanced, for mediators, facilitators and arbitrators.
C. Institutions and their Leaders and Managers:
The Center offers business symposiums to expose institutional leaders and mangers to the concept of developing internal systems of facilitation, mediation, peer review panels and arbitration to address internal and external conflicts affecting their institutions. The symposiums will address the needs of banks, healthcare institutions, governmental entities and large and small businesses. Specifically, the Center will expose the seminar participants to new models of dispute resolution to manage conflict. Students will play an integral part in the symposiums.
The Center offers law students the opportunity to research techniques and systems for institutional dispute resolution, to design the appropriate models and training programs for particular institutions, and to work with the Center's consultant and practitioners in the field in the implementation of these basic training models as part of the Externship/Clinical Program at the Law School.