The Law School recently opened a clinic to help low-income families resolve disputes outside of the court system, said Kimberly Emery, clinic co-instructor and assistant dean for pro bono and public interest.
The Family Alternative Dispute Resolution Clinic originally began as a pilot pro bono clinic and transitioned to an academic credit-granting clinic at the beginning of this semester, Emery said.
The clinic will work to resolve disputes through mediation and collaborative practice, said Richard Balnave, clinic co-instructor and law school professor.
The juvenile courts refer mediation cases to the clinic and its partner, the Mediation Center of Charlottesville, Balnave said. Mediators serve as neutral parties to help both individuals reach an agreement, rather than advocating for one or the other, he said, adding that the majority of mediation cases likely will be child custody and visitation cases. Last weekend, students completed a 20-hour basic mediation skills training program. After observing some cases, they will begin co-mediating cases with the center's certified family mediators, he said.
The clinic also approaches disputes through collaborative practice by partnering with the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society, which offers free legal services to low-income people. CVLAS refers people who want to peacefully resolve their divorce, rather than go to trial, to the clinic.
"This clinic would represent the low-income person who has asked for help from CVLAS and wants a collaborative divorce," Balnave said. Moreover, if a spouse generates a low income, the clinic will provide a list of lawyers willing to represent the spouse free of charge.
The clinic will deal exclusively with family law cases, Balnave said, listing property, alimony and child custody and support as the issues most likely covered.
Apart from exposing students to alternative dispute resolution processes, one of the clinic's goals is to make these processes accessible to low-income families, Emery said.
"It's incredibly difficult for low-income clients with family law issues to find representation," Emery said. "Pro bono attorneys hesitate to take family law cases, particularly custody cases, because they can be quite emotionally draining and also you can be tied up with them for a long period of time so there [are] not a lot of resources out there for those clients."
She also noted that family law cases include an unheard and often vulnerable third party not present in other cases: children.
"One of the key goals," she said, "is to keep the kids out of the middle of the conflict and to lower ... the level of animosity between the two parents."
The clinic will draw on its interdisciplinary nature to help accomplish these goals. In addition to the law students who volunteer at the clinic, three psychology students are auditing the course, as well as training as mediators and assisting in collaborative practices, Balnave said.
"The law students have their perspective, which is very focused on nailing down facts and figuring out what the law says should happen, and the psychology students, their perspective is to listen to people, issues, and feelings behind them and try to see what the real issues are underneath everything," he said. "They can watch the same people talking and they see two different things, or they hear two different things"
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