She believes she can help bring democracy to the world without the use of guns
Article in La Gaceta by Paul Guzzo"And I'll continue to believe that and work towards that goal every minute, every way that I can," said Lynn Cole, professional mediator and attorney who now travels the world helping to set up mediation systems in emerging and developing countries. Over the past three years, Cole has done so in Bulgaria, Jordan, and Kosovo.
"George Bush has said democracy can be brought about easily," laughed Cole. "That is not true. Democracy is a slow, steady, comprehensive building of rules and law programs. One rule of law is to strengthen the judicial system and make it more ethical and transparent. In order to strengthen the judiciary, one of the programs that must be present is mediation because it brings greater access to the courts by reducing the backlog of cases."
According to Cole, mediation is a peaceful way of resolving disputes. Mediation is an informal and non-adversarial process in which a neutral impartial person, the mediator, facilitates negotiations between the disputing parties. By creating dialogue between people who have a disagreement, often times, an agreement can be reached out of court, rather than in court.
In the United States, despite our large judicial system, there is still a great need for mediation. If there can be a judicial backlog in an established judicial system such as the United States', imagine what it must be like in a developing or emerging country that is still trying to get a firm grasp on the democratic judicial system. If the courts in these nations are backed up, a citizen with an important case could be stuck at the back of the line and either wait years for justice or even never see justice. When instances such as these occur, citizens begin to lose faith in their form of government. For any form of democracy to succeed, the citizens must believe it can work.
"From the perspective of nation building, mediation can be an extraordinary civilizing tool," said Cole.
Cole's first foray into international mediation was in 2005. The American Bar Association put together a team of mediators to implement a mediation system in Bulgaria, which is governed under a Parliamentary republic. After three months abroad, Cole not only fell in love with the country, but the idea that mediation can have such a positive impact on a developing nation.
"I feel silly calling it a developing nation, since it has been in existence for over a thousand years," said Cole. "But it is still developing a new form of government."
In 2006 she accepted a position as an Alternative Dispute Resolution specialist in Amman, Jordan, where she again helped to set up a mediation system.
"I was very fortunate to start one of the very first court-related mediation programs in the Arab Middle East," she said. "I stress 'Arab' Middle East because Israel is quite sophisticated in terms of their court system. The program has continued in Amman since I left and I heard they are planning on expanding the program to other courts in Jordan soon."
She recently spent two weeks in Kosovo, where she hopes to return soon to finish implementing a mediation system. While in Jordan and Bulgaria she helped to set up "pilot programs" in individual cities that will expand into national programs after it is tweaked to perfection - or as close as a judicial system can come to being perfect - in these individual cities, when she returns to Kosovo it will be to help set up a national mediation program.
"Mediation is just a good fit for me," said Cole. "I'm a very non-violent person and I believe in my heart that people can talk their problems out and come to resolutions they can both be happy about, rather than the loser of the dispute going home angry and harboring more hatred or, often, neither party getting exactly what they wanted and both parties going home angry."
Her peaceful demeanor can be traced back to her childhood. Cole was born and raised in New Castle, Pennsylvania, a small town with a big Amish population. Her mother was a homemaker and her father was an artist, designing commercial pottery and dishware. She had only 100 students in her graduating class.
Living in such a small town sheltered Cole from many of the evils of society, as crimes such as murder, rape and domestic violence were foreign to her.
"It was a peaceful town," she said matter-of-factly.
She attended the University of Maryland and earned a B.A. in intellectual history, which allows students to acquire a thorough knowledge of the interrelations between philosophy, political thought, science and religion in society.
She then earned her law degree from John Marshall Law School in Chicago, where she was president of the Student Bar Association and a participant in the Federal Public Defender's Program.
Upon graduation she passed the bar exam in Pennsylvania. Soon after she gave birth to her first son.
"This was back when we typed the bar exam," laughed Cole. "So I had my arms stretched out to reach the desk since I was pregnant, hoping the whole time I wouldn't go into labor until I was finished."
She soon found work as an assistant district attorney in Pennsylvania, trying some of society's worst cases - homicides, rapes and child molestations, everything she was sheltered from in her small town of New Castle. Despite the emotional burden the cases carried, Cole felt it was a good experience, as she was forced to work up close and get to know people dealing with harsh realities of life.
"It taught me a lot about the world and about real life and people," she said. "As an assistant district attorney, you're forced to get to know these people as people, not just faceless clients. As an attorney I think you need that experience."
In 1978 she relocated to Tampa, gave birth to her second son and passed the Florida bar exam. She worked as an assistant U.S. attorney until 1995, serving as lead prosecutor on fraud, money laundering, drug trafficking and counterfeit cases, and served on President Ronald Reagan's Organized Crime and Narcotics Task Force.
From 1995 - 2002 Cole was managing partner of a law firm focusing on business litigation and federal trial practice in the areas of labor and employment, contracts, complex commercial litigation, civil rights, securities, products liability, anti-trust, utilities and construction law. It was during this time she slowly began drifting towards mediation, and in 2003 left trial law behind to concentrate on mediation fulltime in her own private practice, focusing on labor, employment and commercial litigation, primarily in federal court.
"I don't do any domestic or marital mediation," she stressed. "I stick to issues I have a legal background in.
"Mediation is a powerful tool," she continued. "When these litigations drag on for two or three years, the participants in the case are forced to carry these negative feelings with them the entire time. That's not healthy. Mediation brings the parties together, allows them to talk it out, hopefully in a peaceful manner, come to a solution and leave the negative feelings behind. Mediation is just a perfect niche for me."
Despite her success in Florida, she said she realized she needed to branch out in 2004 after President George W. Bush was re-elected.
"I decided it was time for me to go abroad and do something positive for these developing countries," explained Cole. I thought if I was going to work and use my energy, I'd at least do so in a country where I could make a difference."
In doing so, she said she has also helped to undo some of the negative feelings other countries harbor towards the United States.
"These countries realize that the American government does not truly represent who the American people are," said Cole. "They see that many of us want to help them. But, many of the citizens of these developing countries still cannot understand the United States government's foreign policies at all.
"This is why Kosovo is going to be such an exciting opportunity. We hope we can prove that mediation is a powerful tool and if properly implemented can help rebuild a country - without violence."