Texas State University

The Legal Studies Program offers an elective course, LS 5359 – Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), which is designed primarily to complement the paralegal skills taught in the Legal Studies Program but also to help people who would like to mediate employment, landlord-tenant, neighborhood, and other interpersonal disputes.  The ADR course combines lectures with practical assignments and role plays.  Students not only learn negotiation and mediation theory, they also acquire the practical skills necessary to mediate interpersonal disputes.  Assignments and role plays focus on communication and negotiation skills, active listening, appropriate questioning, generation and evaluation of options, reality testing, and agreement making.