Workshops - Professional Skills Program, Malibu

Faculty: Ken Cloke & Joan Goldsmith

Every workplace generates chronic conflicts, yet few organizations have rethought the way they work, or used conflict resolution skills and ideas to prevent and transform the sources of chronic conflict, or examined their organizational communications and "conflict cultures" to discover how their conflicts are generated and reduce their reoccurrence. Fewer still have integrated conflict resolution and coaching, trained leaders as mediators, used conflict resolution principles to inform their change processes, conducted "conflict audits" to reveal where these streams of conflict originate, or designed complex, multi-layered, self-correcting systems to improve their capacity for conflict prevention, resolution, and transformation.

This workshop will provide a framework for mediators who would like to enter the emerging field of conflict resolution consulting, and learn how to integrate mediation with organizational communication, conflict coaching, team building, leadership development, change management, and systems design. These skills can help organizations rethink the way they work and use systems design principles to construct more collaborative, democratic, self-managing organizations. Participants will learn to:

Analyze the chronic, systemic sources of workplace and organizational conflicts and identify complex workplace and organizational dynamics
Recognize the structures, systems, relationships, processes, and "conflict cultures" that contribute to workplace and organizational conflicts
Discover how to conduct "conflict audits" and learn to become more skillful conflict coaches
Design multi-layered, complex, self-correcting organizational systems that improve the capacity for conflict prevention, management and resolution
Improve their ability to mediate workplace and organizational conflict in public and private sector organizations, work teams, and family businesses
Learn to redesign workplaces and organizations and identify transformational opportunities in conflict

Faculty: Selina Shultz and Maggie Feinstein

True transformation happens where the art of dispute resolution and the expertise of clinical psychology collide. Join internationally recognized trauma psychologist Maggie Feinstein and Straus Institute Executive Director of Training Selina Shultz for a deeply personal exploration of what it takes to guide shattered communities and individuals through pain and toward resilience. Drawing from their collaborative work on the Pittsburgh Synagogue shooting memorialization and the Ghostship Warehouse fire, Selina and Maggie pull back the curtain on the messy, vital, and ultimately hopeful work of navigating trauma. They will share the hard-won lessons from their own interdisciplinary partnership—a blend of clinical insight and mediation strategy that bridges the gap between pain and possibility. This isn’t just a workshop; it’s an invitation to evolve your practice. You will leave with tangible, human-centered frameworks that help you hold space for high-stakes conflict, empowering you to move beyond simply managing pain toward fostering genuine resilience, whether you are mediating for two or facilitating a fractured group.

Faculty: Colin Rule & Dr. Clare Fowler

Artificial intelligence is transforming every profession—including dispute resolution. For mediators, arbitrators, ombuds, facilitators, attorneys, organizational leaders, and conflict management professionals, the challenge is no longer whether to use AI, but how to use it responsibly, ethically, and effectively. This course will cover a variety of fields, aiming at workplace, family, real estate, academic, international, and healthcare.

This highly interactive 2½-day program provides participants with a practical foundation for integrating artificial intelligence into conflict resolution practice. This course begins with theoretical discussions around the integration of AI through the lens of professional judgment, ethics, confidentiality, human-centered decision making, and the future of dispute resolution.

Next, participants will explore the evolution of AI, understand how large language models work, examine emerging ethical standards and safeguards, and discuss the opportunities and limitations of AI within mediation, facilitation, negotiation, coaching, systems design, organizational conflict management, and legal practice.

The rest of the course will focus on immediately applicable skills. Participants will leave with practical workflows for drafting documents, preparing for mediations, designing training materials, conducting research, improving client communications, analyzing complex information, managing projects, and increasing productivity—while maintaining appropriate professional oversight and protecting confidentiality.

Topics include:

The evolution of artificial intelligence and where the technology is headed
Ethical responsibilities, bias, confidentiality, and professional safeguards
Practical applications for mediators, facilitators, attorneys, coaches, trainers, and organizational consultants
Integrating AI into daily workflows without sacrificing professional judgment
Designing AI-assisted processes that enhance—not replace—human expertise
Creating personalized AI assistants and simple automations for recurring work
Developing an implementation plan for immediate use following the course

Through demonstrations, guided exercises, case studies, and hands-on experimentation, participants will gain the confidence to evaluate AI critically, implement it responsibly, and use it as a practical tool to improve both efficiency and the quality of professional services.

Whether you are just beginning to explore AI or are already experimenting with emerging technologies, this program will provide the knowledge, ethical framework, and practical skills needed to successfully integrate artificial intelligence into your conflict resolution practice. This program does assume that you have advanced dispute resolution experience.

Faculty: Stephanie Blondell

What separates good commercial mediators from the absolute best? Often, it comes down to the mastery of their professional persona. This specialized workshop cuts through standard mediation theory to focus on the psychology of presence and perception in commercial dispute resolution. Designed for seasoned neutrals, this session offers a rare opportunity to trade notes on advanced behavioral dynamics, refine your personal mediation brand, and cultivate a persona that commands authority in high-value and high-emotion rooms. Participants will look beyond standard evaluation and facilitation techniques to analyze how their personal brand, communication style, and psychological footprint impact the room. We will go on a deep dive into behavioral analysis with peer-to-peer feedback and coaching. You will learn to audit your natural dispute-resolution style, leverage your unique psychological strengths, and project a commanding presence that drives parties toward settlement.

Faculty: Randy Lowry and Peter Robinson

Maximizing Success in Mediation is a highly interactive course for experienced lawyers who want to maximize results in resolving complex civil cases. It recognizes that in today’s practice world, case settlement often takes place in the context of mediation, a process that has evolved - with both success and challenges - over the last four decades. The course focuses on each stage of the mediation process from the perspective of the lawyer-advocate, understanding its dynamics and developing sophisticated skills to manage it. Its unique “executive dialogue” format, developed for one of the nation’s largest dispute resolution organizations, draws on the extensive experience of both the participants and the facilitators. Participants will complete the advanced course as more effective legal advocates with new perspectives, new strategies and new skills for use in settling cases in mediation.

Maximizing Success in Mediation is facilitated by Professors Peter Robinson and Randy Lowry. In a rare opportunity to again teach together, each has been a leading part of the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution for decades - Peter as its managing director and Randy as its founder - while both serving on the Pepperdine Caruso School of Law faculty. As law professors, mediators, advocates, and early contributors to the integration of mediation into the civil justice system, they continue to be passionate about equipping lawyers to effectively serve their clients through innovative dispute resolution.

Faculty: David P. Dowling

Every important professional relationship eventually arrives at the negotiation table. Interests differ. Resources are limited. Emotions enter the conversation. Information is incomplete, and the decisions made in the room can shape relationships and results for years to come.

The Negotiation Lab is an intensive, highly interactive program designed to help participants become more thoughtful, confident, and effective negotiators. Participants will explore the strategy, psychology, communication skills, and human dynamics that influence negotiation. More importantly, they will have repeated opportunities to put those ideas into practice.

The program begins with a simple premise: effective negotiation is neither purely competitive nor purely collaborative. Skilled negotiators know when to advocate, when to inquire, when to hold firm, and when to search for possibilities that neither side initially recognized. Participants will learn how to claim value without unnecessarily damaging relationships and how to create value without giving away what matters most.

The program examines the less visible forces operating at the table. Participants will consider how cognitive bias, emotion, identity, culture, power, status, trust, and prior relationships affect judgment and behavior. They will practice recognizing these influences in themselves and others while learning practical ways to slow down decisions, test assumptions, and remain effective when a conversation becomes difficult.

The Negotiation Lab is built around experience rather than extended lecture. Each major concept will be followed by an opportunity to use it. Participants will negotiate in different settings, receive feedback from peers and instructors, observe the choices made by other negotiators, and examine not only whether an agreement was reached, but how it was reached and what opportunities may have been missed.

The program is designed so that newer negotiators can develop a strong foundation while experienced negotiators can examine their habits, sharpen their table skills, and expand their range.

Faculty: Thomas J. Stipanowich

Our world today is consumed by conflict. We see it everywhere: in our political discourse, in divisions within and between communities, and in our homes and workplaces. We live in a time of deep polarization, where passions often override reason; compromise, let alone active cooperation, seems like a forgotten art.

At a time not unlike our own, one extraordinary individual—Abraham Lincoln—grappled with the challenges and opportunities associated with human conflict as a political contender, a lawyer, and as commander-in-chief at a perilous moment in U.S. history. Along the way, Lincoln functioned variously as a negotiator, counselor, mediator, problem-solver, advocate, arbitrator / judge, policy-maker, and leader. Lincoln’s engagement with conflict equipped him to improve his own life and relationships, promote the betterment of his community, effectively serve legal clients, and eventually, make vast, history-altering changes in the landscape of our society.

Today, thanks to modern insights on the dynamics of conflict, including behavioral psychology; explorations of human moral foundations and ethics; and principles of leadership—especially adaptive leadership aimed at dealing with great change, we have the tools to lift up key lessons from Lincoln’s life and career. Presented with the help of a series of engaging, interactive problems and role-playing exercises, these insights spotlight specific character traits, positive habits, lessons learned, and strategic choices that can be cultivated by leaders, managers, decision-makers, or anyone who seeks to have a positive, truly consequential impact in their relationships, workplaces, communities, nation, or world.

Faculty: Maureen Weston and Zachary Calo

This professional skills workshop examines the distinctive challenges of resolving disputes in the U.S. and international sports industries. Participants will explore the legal and governance frameworks of competitive sport and the processes used to resolve disputes involving athletes, teams, leagues, universities, and governing bodies, including recent developments reshaping U.S. college sports. Topics include sports governance, athlete eligibility and selection, anti-doping, safeguarding and disciplinary matters, federation and league rules, contractual and commercial disputes, and cross-cultural considerations in international sport. Through interactive exercises and case studies, participants will examine and compare U.S., Olympic, and international dispute resolution systems while developing practical skills in negotiation, mediation, arbitration advocacy, client counseling, and strategic dispute resolution.

Faculty: Helen Winter and Shaphan Roberts

How can we recognize the hidden assumptions that shape our judgments and better bridge differences?

Drawing on the research behind David Hoffman and Helen Winter’s Follow the Science: Proven Strategies for Reducing Unconscious Bias, this interactive workshop explores the science of unconscious bias and research-backed strategies for counteracting its effects. Participants will consider how bias, culture, and differing perspectives can shape communication, decision-making, and conflict, and explore practical approaches for navigating these dynamics more effectively.

Through discussion, experiential exercises, and reflection, the workshop aims to build greater awareness, curiosity, and capacity for constructive engagement across differences.

Professional Skills Program, Malibu | March 2027

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