Santa Clara University School of Law has received a $5 million gift to establish a center dedicated to training students in communication, negotiation, mediation and conflict resolution.
Named the Daley Center for Conflict Resolution, the center will prepare future lawyers to resolve complex disputes through specialized training and experiential learning.
The center will provide academic programs and training opportunities that build communication and conflict resolution skills while drawing on Santa Clara Law’s strengths in technology, international law and social justice.
Its academic offerings will include courses covering negotiation, mediation, arbitration, restorative justice and online conflict resolution, with an emphasis on the development of exceptional interviewing and counseling skills. It also will provide experiential learning opportunities, including the Bates Mediation Clinic.
The Daley Center will support impactful research, student competitions, workshops and conferences, as well as professional development opportunities for lawyers and members of the greater Silicon Valley professional community.
The gift was made by alumna Dorian Daley, J.D. ’86. She said Santa Clara Law invested in her as a law student 40 years ago, both educationally and financially, and she enjoyed a long career as a litigator and general counsel of a large tech company.
“It seems fitting for me to invest in a program that focuses on those skills and a mindset that were not just critical to my practice, but for which there is a great need,” Daley said. “The core of what we do as attorneys is solve problems, and that means understanding the genesis and different perspectives underlying a dispute, speaking the same language as one’s perceived adversary, establishing trust, strong and persuasive — yet non-antagonistic — advocacy that acknowledges disagreement, and creatively looking for a path forward that can address the grievances while maintaining and even extending relationships.”
The Daley Center will equip students with those skills while drawing on the university’s Jesuit tradition of compassion, empathy, service and social justice.
The Daley Center joins Santa Clara Law’s other academic centers, including the Datta Center for High Tech Law, the Center for Global Law and Policy and the Center for Social Justice and Public Service.
