Learning to be a Mediator

Mediation offers many opportunities for community service, as well as career development. In order to plan your training activity, you need to decide if you are looking for a career change or a volunteer opportunity.

All mediation, volunteer or professional, requires structured, approved training. You might choose one of many paths to mediation training, depending on your goals:

If you want to become a volunteer mediator, you will need to complete a mediation training course (either community, general civil or domestic) and a hands-on internship. Both community and general civil training are offered by the Dispute Resolution Center of West Michigan, as well as many of the other centers throughout Michigan. Learn more...
If you want to be a court-approved mediator, you will need to complete either general civil mediation training or domestic mediation training, depending on what kinds of cases you wish to mediate. You can learn about the State Court Administrative Office (SCAO) requirements via the Michigan website. You can also find a list of general civil and domestic mediation training classes via the Institute for Continuing Legal Education (ICLE). If you want to become a professional mediator, we suggest you explore career opportunities through an organization such as the Mediation Training and Consultation Institute.