LCCR Celebrates Milestone Anniversary with Banner Year!
For more than 30 years, the Loyola Center for Conflict Resolution (LCCR) has been an alternative resource for conflict resolution for marginalized and underserved communities in L.A. County, regardless of their ability to pay. This includes people who have suffered systemic discrimination in the judicial system. Part of the Loyola Social Justice Law Clinic (LSJLC), the LCCR supports people seeking options for resolving disputes outside of court. This is done via face-to-face interpersonal interaction to encourage communication and repair relationships. LCCR assists non-English speaking parties, undocumented immigrants, individuals with disabilities, veterans, and families in general by removing language barriers and implementing procedures that lessen biases against them. The LCCR creates a safe space that allows the participants to reach durable agreements by helping them evaluate their options (legal and non-legal) and letting them decide what works best for them. This equips parties to make decisions for themselves and frees up the courts to deal with cases that necessitate judicial involvement. It is win-win.
LCCR faculty, staff, students, and volunteers continued our mission in increasing access to justice this past academic year when they:
- Served more than 2,016 participants;
- Resolved 500 disputes;
- Conducted three 30-hour mediation training sessions;
- Trained 38 students and community trainees;
- Completed more than 40 Mediator-in-Residence (MIR) outreaches throughout L.A. County. With the MIR program, LCCR brings its mediation and conciliation services directly to the community to reach underserved individuals;
- Completed more than 120 Options Counseling Sessions in landlord/tenant and consumer/debtor Issues;
- Contributed 4,300 hours of community service via clinical student work;
- Contributed 700 hours of service via community volunteers.
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Collaborative Family Law Clinic Celebrates 10 Years
in its first decade, the LCCR's Collaborative Family Law Clinic (C-LAW) has forged a unique pathway to help families during their most trying times. Divorcing couples work with a mediator and a collaborative family law team from the Los Angeles Collaborative Family Law Association, which includes attorneys, mental health professionals, and financial professionals. C-LAW’s goal is to support families in meeting their needs and interests as they navigate divorce. In the fall of 2022, LCCR partnered with the Helen B. Landgarten Art Therapy Clinic to explore how clinical art therapy could best be integrated into and enhance the collaborative divorce process. Clinic students and mediators saw firsthand how art therapy allowed participants to express their emotions, explore their perspectives, and gain insights into their family dynamics. It also offered participants a sense of control during a stressful time. The visual representations shared appeared to increase alignment in goals for separation in divorcing parties.
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LCCR Receives American Rescue Plan Funds
The American Rescue Plan (ARP), signed into law in March 2021, provides $350 billion in funding for state and local governments to build an equitable economic recovery from the devastating economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the support of ARP funds, LCCR was able hire additional staff: Cynthia Campoy Brophy, Patricia Ortega '24, and Stephanie Schestag '13.
During its inaugural year of funding, LCCR assisted approximately 400 participants in resolving more than 100 cases. In one case, LCCR was able to help a landlord and tenant negotiate a fair and sustainable rent increase while encouraging healthy communication between the two going forward. In another matter, LCCR facilitated a sizeable settlement regarding habitability issues between a long-term tenant and his landlord. Another successful face-to-face mediation was held this year between members of a community non-profit regarding issues that arose prior to COVID-19 and festered during the pandemic. The participants came to LCCR with strong emotions (anger, frustration, sadness), lots of misunderstandings, and an inability to move beyond the hurt. Within a few hours, the mediators assisted the participants in gaining new understandings, provide reciprocal apologies, repair their strained relationships, and leave the mediation with a hopeful future.
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LCCR Takes Lead at 2023 Employment Mediation Institute
The half-day Employment Mediation Institute program held at Loyola Law School focused on how changes in the modern workplace have impacted the field of employment mediation. Participants considered whether mediators can offer more to their clients than just closing the deal, received updates on the latest California employment law cases, and left with best practices based on recent neuroscience and lessons learned about work in a post-pandemic world that can help transform the way we address and resolve workplace conflicts.
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|  | LCCR Hosts 'Just the Beginning' Annual Summer Legal Institute
Last June, the Loyola Center for Conflict Resolution welcomed 41 local high school students to the LLS campus for the "Just the Beginning" Annual Summer Legal Institute, whose mission is to increase diversity in the legal profession. This weeklong program gives many underrepresented and first-gen students the opportunity to be in spaces and places of knowledge that can make a difference in their lives. The student scholars spent the week learning directly from a dedicated and diverse group of judges, lawyers, and students, visiting the federal courthouse, attending a networking mixer at Jones Day, and gaining a firsthand look at what law school and the practice of law are all about. They also learned basic conflict resolution and negotiation skills throughout the week and applied their new skills at the Negotiation Competition held on the last day. This year's program will be held at LLS the week of June 24.
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Native Spanish Speaking LCCR Student Earns Pearl Castro Mendez Scholarship
Through the generosity of Stacey Sterling Schwartz '97, we were able to provide the Pearl Castro Mendez scholarship to a student supporting the monolingual Spanish community. This past year, Andrea Lee '24, who was born and raised in Mexico, was its proud recipient. Andrea had the opportunity to participate in the Loyola Center for Conflict Resolution this past semester. As a native Spanish speaker, she happily provided conciliation and mediation services to parties who only spoke Spanish.
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LCCR Staff Profile: Janet S. Grundfest
Janet S. Grundfest '89 is our award-winning lead mediator for LCCR's contract with the City of Beverly Hills. Janet was the recipient of the Los Angeles County Volunteer of the Year Award in 2017 by the L.A. County Board of Supervisors for her mediation work with the Department for Consumer and Business Affairs (DCBA). Janet practiced insurance law in the private sector for years and trained as a mediator at DCBA, mediating civil cases in Small Claims Court, Civil Limited Court and Unlawful Detainers. In 2018, Janet returned to Loyola as a senior staff mediator and student supervisor at LCCR. Janet says that she has "found her calling" in community mediation assisting those who cannot afford a lawyer. Janet's favorite part of working at LCCR is supervising and mentoring our clinic students in conciliating/mediating.
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