Another person’s shoes

Sharon Obuns earned her LLM in ADR degree from USC Gould

The encounter haunted Obuns long afterward — and not just because she would never see her stepbrother again. “This shouldn’t be how you pass on a message like that,” she kept thinking. “There must be a different way of talking to people.”

 

The desire for a more sympathetic form of communication sparked in Obuns an interest in becoming a lawyer in mediation. It has since then only grown stronger. On May 11, she graduated from USC Gould with a Master of Laws in Alternative Dispute Resolution.

 

The only woman from Bamba, a community of about 35,000, to become a lawyer, Obuns studied at the University of Jos and at the Nigerian Law School in Abuja before spending a year as an intern at the office of the Chief Justice of Ekiti State. While there, she became keenly aware of a backlog in the courts, with people as young as 13 spending five to seven years in prison waiting to be heard. Already trained in ADR, Obuns rallied support from a few colleagues, and together they were able to negotiate the release of six young inmates.

 

Half a decade later, her resume includes experience in private practice and as a senior business executive for the government of Cross River State. But she still sees the ADR success during her internship as pivotal. “It enforced my zeal for mediation,” she said.

 

Sharon Obuns (second row) recently received the USC Gould Graduate and International Programs Award

As a student at USC Gould, Obuns faced difficult challenges; with her husband pursuing an MBA degree on the East Coast and funds often short, she was raising two sons, ages 1 and 3. But she also found abundant material to feed her passion.

 

The class she most benefited from was the Practical Mediation Skills Clinic taught by Professor Richard Peterson where she learned to consider the underlying feelings and the basic interests of the parties; such as if what they really want is an apology rather than money, a financial resolution of the dispute will still leave them feeling dissatisfied. “[Peterson] works with your humanity,” she says, “and makes you put yourself in another person’s shoes. He makes us realize that everyone is human.”

 

Obuns, who recently received the USC Gould Graduate and International Programs Award, plans on staying in the United States one more year. After returning to Nigeria, she wants to work with the Cross River State government to raise awareness for the benefits of ADR processes and of training more people as mediators. “If we get the mediation system running well, it’s a win-win,” she says. “It will mean faster access to justice and less backlog for the judges.”

 

Reforming the system won’t be easy. But Obuns knows that her goal is worth the effort. Her ambition is about more than efficiency for the courts; she wants to change how people talk to each other.

 

Find out more about Gould's LLM in Alternative Dispute Resolution.