A new resource at the Rutgers School of Law–Camden will help current and future attorneys, other professionals and  interested parties with focused training in the growing field of dispute resolution .

The Rutgers–Camden Mediation Center will provide a comprehensive overview of dispute resolution, a pathway increasingly preferred by judges seeking to minimize the cost and volume of courtroom trials for the benefit of the litigants and their families.  “Time often is essential to families and businesses who find themselves in court,” explains Nancy Hawn, Co-Director of the new Rutgers–Camden law school initiative.  “If it takes a year for a case to work its way through the court system, how much money is expended and emotional cost incurred during that time?”

Rutgers School of Law–Camden students will be able to enroll in two courses taught by Carl Viniar, Co-Director of the Rutgers–Camden Mediation Center:  Alternative Dispute Resolution and Family Mediation.   Additional courses will be taught by Nancy Hawn in the Rutgers School of Business–Camden.

The Rutgers–Camden Mediation Center will provide practitioners with 40-hour basic trainings in family mediation; 12-hour advanced family mediation trainings; 18 hour civil mediation trainings and four-hour continuing education courses on mediation, conflict management and prevention, negotiation skills, and related subjects.  The Center also will provide dispute resolution services to the public and to businesses in the Delaware Valley.

“Mediation and other forms of alternative dispute resolution increasingly are embraced by people engaged in economic or personal disputes as a cost-effective means for resolving challenging issues,” says Rayman Solomon, Dean of the Rutgers School of Law–Camden.  “Through our Mediation Center, Rutgers will provide the Delaware Valley with a strong and meaningful emphasis on this growing movement.”

Nancy Hawn and Carl Viniar will Co-Direct the new Rutgers–Camden center, which will offer programs that may provide continuing legal education credits for legal practitioners.  Hawn and Viniar run the South Jersey Mediation Center in Cherry Hill which specializes in family mediation services.

The Mediation Center is located in Room 616 of the Law School.  You can contact the Mediation Center at 856-225-2975 and by nhawn@camden.rutgers.edu.

• 2009 Training Schedule