For this month’s feature, I had the pleasure of speaking with Robyn Weinstein, who has dedicated her career to the advancement and craft of conflict resolution. As the current Director of the Cardozo Mediation Clinic and Associate Director of the Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution in New York, I’m thankful that she’s the one training the next generation of practitioners in this arena. And for those students who go into more traditional areas of law practice and don’t go into dispute resolution, the skills and values they learn from Robyn’s program will serve them their entire careers.
Robyn Weinstein, director of the Cardozo Mediation Clinic and associate director of the Kukin Program for Conflict Resolution in New York. Courtesy photo.
Robyn became interested in conflict resolution before attending law school while working as a development and research assistant for an international think tank in Washington, D.C. She credits the researchers and scholars around her for showing her there were innovative ways to think about and address intractable conflicts. She later studied mediation under Professor Lela Love at Cardozo Law School, where Robyn now directs the Mediation Clinic. She hopes to inspire her students to understand how mediation can be a meaningful and effective way for individuals to resolve conflicts. In her words, “From my first experience as a mediator, I found it amazing that even when a case doesn’t settle, two people who were so angry could still walk away saying, ‘Wow, this process impacted me positively.’”
