Two Texas Tech law grads discuss their work in alternative dispute resolution

By Ursula Furi-Perry, Esq.

Litigation isn’t your only option as a new JD.  Some recent graduates are putting their degrees to work in alternative dispute resolution.

Amy Lambert, a 2006 graduate of Texas Tech University Law School, said it wasn’t until she clerked at a law firm that she realized the value of alternative dispute resolution, and a more “holistic” approach to solving legal problems.

Lambert was specifically drawn to collaborative law practice, where the parties agree not to take any contested issues to court and negotiate instead, and where both attorneys must withdraw if the parties decide to go to court.

“Early on in my law school career, I knew I wanted to practice family law,” Lambert said. So she took related courses in law school, including family law and marital property. Participating in the law school’s ADR clinic, she trained in mediation and other methods of ADR and satisfied the 40-hour requirement to become a mediator in Texas.

Coming from a divorced family, Lambert saw a stark contrast between collaborative law and her own parents’ divorce two decades before, which started amicably, but turned into a battle between opposing sides that Lambert says left her family with deep scars.

Lambert said collaborative law “really is incredible for moving the parties through this process more quickly.”

Now an attorney at the Law Offices of Jennifer Tull in San Antonio, Texas, Lambert handles up to 40 cases at a time — focusing mainly on family law and practicing collaborative law, mediation and some litigation.

A few times per month, Lambert also acts as a mediator between other attorneys.

“When I’m mediating, I like to meet with all the clients and ease their mind,” she described. “I feel that my main focus in mediation is to assist the parties and generate options for settlement that they may not have thought of before.”

The most challenging part of mediation is encountering a case where one or both of the parties are clearly not focused on settling — perhaps because they are focused on some past event, Lambert said.

Lindsay Rose, also a 2006 graduate of Texas Tech and the school’s ADR clinic, practices litigation and mediation at Bingham & Lee, a small firm in Austin, Texas. Representing parties in civil cases such as securities litigation, bankruptcy and commercial breach of contract, Rose guides her clients through the mediation process.

“To be involved in ADR you have to be a good listener,” said Rose. “You have to make sure that you’re hearing what the opposing party is saying during the mediation.”

Both Lambert and Rose credit their law school’s ADR clinic with giving them practical experience and insight into what ADR is like. Rose recalls one landlord-tenant dispute that she mediated at the Lubbock County Dispute Resolution Center as part of her clinical experience. The tenants had fallen behind on their rent, and the parties were barely on speaking terms.

“I had to really probe as a mediator to get them to talk and got it resolved [where] both sides were happy with the result,” Rose said.

ADR alone can be a tough area to break into. One option is to take cases in addition to traditional law practice.

To those who are interested in ADR, Lambert recommends learning about various areas of ADR, pinpointing their interests, and then volunteering their time to get some practical experience. For example, some students break in by offering to work for free for a firm or organization on cases that interest them, and then transitioning into a paying position.

Lambert added that she volunteers to write articles for publications in her practice area of interest. This helps her explore various topics of interest and gets her name out to others in the field.

For these recent grads, alternative dispute resolution presents a successful job option and a fulfilling career path.

“It’s a really important part of the puzzle of solving legal disputes,” Lambert said.