Teaching Foundational Mediation Principles in a First-Year Lawyering Skills Program

This article asserts that foundational mediation principles and skills can successfully be taught in a first-year lawyering skills program. At the University of Kansas School of Law, we have included an instructional mediation module in our first-year course for many years. The module contains substantive instruction on alternative dispute resolution, active learning exercises, a mediation simulation, and a reflective oral report. Our module could be adapted to other first-year courses or to upper-level experiential and doctrinal courses. This article explains the learning goals of our mediation module and the module’s various components in detail. It explains the module’s many benefits and points out the potential disadvantages and challenges of adding a similar module to existing curriculum.