By Braelyn Rumble

My placement with the Winkler Institute for Dispute Resolution in partnership with Pro Bono Students Canada has been one of the most informative experiences that I have had in my first year of law school. Upon my first meeting with Jean-Paul, the program supervisor, Jean-Paul made a joke about how “mediation” typically autocorrects to “meditation” on smartphones. Jean-Paul explained that much of the work my partner and I would be doing over the course of the placement would entail creating plain-language graphics explaining alternative dispute resolution (ADR) processes. While laughing at his joke, it suddenly occurred to me that as a brand new first-year law student – I actually knew more about meditation than mediation!  I realized our task of taking scholarly articles intended for practitioners and turning them into digestible materials for the public would not only be an interesting experience but would also assist in my own understanding.

At the end of my placement with the Winkler Institute, I can happily report that I understand the difference between mediation and meditation, along with the processes of other forms of alternate dispute resolution such as arbitration and negotiation. When it came down to distilling academic articles into a few words fit for an infographic, it became apparent that amongst various types of ADR, there are core underlying values such as communication and transparency.

I found that when relaying information onto the infographic it became helpful to ask “What are the benefits of this process versus traditional methods of litigation?” and “What might the drawbacks be of this method?” Some lessons I learned from my internship include 1) learning that certain processes can be beneficial for specific areas of law (such as collaborative processes being well suited for family law) and 2) there are ways that different communities can tailor ADR processes to be aligned with shared community values. Given the COVID-19 pandemic, it was also interesting to examine the feasibility of different methods of ADR in the current remote environment.

This experience reminded me that how information is conveyed matters – “dry legal jargon” can be presented in a captivating manner that highlights key takeaways. It was a welcome shift of perspective from the factums and memorandum writing that I was learning in the first semester of law school, while also providing a useful skill of succinctness that I will integrate into future legal writing.

Ultimately, my internship at the Winkler Institute broadened my perspective of what type of professional work I might pursue with my law degree. I’m looking forward to exploring the world of ADR in the future!