Events

Date: Tuesday, September 30, 2025

Time: 5:00pm to 7:00pm

Place: 
Santa Clara University School of Law
El Camino Real
Santa Clara, CA 95050

This event is free to attend, Registration Required

Sponsored By:

Hon. Peter H. Kirwan (Ret.), Mediator & Arbitrator at Signature Resolution, and Mediation Professor at Santa Clara Law

Judge Kirwan recently retired in April 2024 after serving 18 years on the Santa Clara County Superior Court Bench. His assignments included civil trials, civil case management, law and motion, writs and injunctive relief and complex litigation, in addition to serving as Supervising Judge of the Court's Civil Division between 2012-2014. Prior to being appointed to the Bench, he spent 15 years as a civil litigator at Hoge, Fenton, Jones and Appel and 4 years at Needham, Davis, Kirwan and Young, a litigation firm he co-founded with his partners. He has been an active member of the American Inns of Court for over thirty years and currently serves on the Board of Governor's for the Association of Business Trial Lawyers. Judge Kirwan has also served as an adjunct professor for the past 16 years at Santa Clara Law teaching mediation theory and recently an experiential program where students mediate small claims disputes. In addition to serving on a variety of continuing education panels over the past 18 years, he also served on the CJER faculty teaching fellow judges in areas of civil litigation. Judge Kirwan currently provides mediation and arbitration services at Signature Resolution.

Tamara Lopez, Mediator & Arbitrator at JAMS

Tamara Lopez, Esq. is a full time neutral after a seasoned career as an independent mediator, Judge Pro Tem and government litigator. As a neutral, Ms. Lopez utilizes her breadth of legal experience along with personal traits that have made her so successful- intelligence, sound judgment, practicality, diligence and persuasiveness. Her ability to communicate on a sophisticated level both intellectually and emotionally, aids counsel and the parties in resolving their disputes. Tamara currently provides services as neutral at JAMS.

Adriana C. Moore, Attorney & Mediator at Moore Law

Adriana is a practicing civil litigation attorney and private mediator with over 25 years of experience in identifying, evaluating and resolving conflict for individuals, private companies and small businesses. Her broad range of litigation experience in business, corporate, real estate, and employment matters have resulted in her skilled assessment, evaluation and resolution of a variety of disputes, both large and small. These skills have been further honed in her mediation practice and ADR volunteer work with multiple courts in the Bay Area. She is particularly skilled at facilitating communications between parties with complex goals and varied temperaments. She enjoys helping them navigate difficult issues and creatively resolve conflicts. She has worked with prominent firms and founded two general practice firms. Ms. Moore received her B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. and her J.D. from University of Texas School of Law in Austin. She enjoys teaching critical lawyering skills as an adjunct at Santa Clara School of Law.

Laurie Mikkelsen, Attorney-Mediator/ADR Administrator at Santa Clara County Superior Court

Laurie Mikkelsen is Santa Clara County Superior Court’s ADR Administrator and Civil Attorney-Mediator, overseeing the Court’s Civil, Probate, Unlawful Detainer, Small Claims, Civil Harassment, and Elder Abuse ADR programs and 80 volunteer settlement attorneys, and personally conducting settlement conferences and mediations for those cases. Prior to becoming a neutral, Laurie was an environmental, land use, and water law litigator, until her work on the Quantification Settlement Agreement consolidated cases convinced her there had to be a better alternative. She has taught mediation at Santa Clara University School of Law, been a Trustee and Secretary on the Santa Clara County Bar Association, and keeps her toes in the environmental realm as a member of the San Lorenzo Valley Water District’s Environmental Committee. She graduated magna cum laude from the law school formerly known as Hastings.

Leor Chechik, Director, Conflict Resolution Program at Santa Clara Law

Leor Chechik leads the executive functions of the Conflict Resolution Program at Santa Clara University School of Law. She recently graduated from Santa Clara Law where she helped to start the Bates Mediation Clinic allowing our students mediate small claims cases for unrepresented litigants. Prior to law school, Leor had an accomplished career in tech, where in addition to being an engineer she also engaged in conflict prevention and resolution work, and she continues providing career coaching.

Model Standards of Conduct for Mediators (Am. Bar Ass’n et al. 2005)

Cal. Rules of Court, rule 3.855: Impartiality, disclosures, conflict management

Cal. Rules of Court, rule 3.857: Procedural fairness, roles, dual ADR, termination

Cal. Evid. Code §§ 1115–1129: Rules governing mediator confidentiality