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Associate Professor of Law; Mediation Clinic Director
B.A., 1989, Marquette University; J.D., 1992, University of Michigan; LL.M., 1997, Loyola University Chicago
Room 105K | Phone: 501-916-5451 | Email: [email protected]
Assistant: Sara Smallwood | Room 105 | Phone: 501-916-5404 | Email: [email protected]

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Kelly Browe Olson is a law professor and the Mediation Clinic Director. She oversees a state-wide IDEA Special Education Facilitation and Mediation project. In addition to teaching the Mediation Clinic, she teaches Family Law, Mediation and Negotiation Seminars, ADR, and Domestic Violence courses.  She helped create the UA ÌÇÐÄÊÓƵlogo Graduate Certificate Program in Conflict Mediation. She recently finished the UA ÌÇÐÄÊÓƵlogo’s Academic Leadership Academy and has been asked to participate next year as a speaker. She is a passionate advocate who focuses on educating law students, judges, lawyers, and other professionals on conflict resolution, communication and emotional intelligence.

Professor Browe Olson serves on the Arkansas Access to Justice Commission and the editorial board of the Family Court Review. She is a senior advisor for CADRE, the Center for Dispute Resolution in Education and works with the National Conference of Bar Examiners on the NextGen Bar Exam development. She recently finished 3 years on the Model Standards for Family and Divorce Mediation joint taskforce. She has previously served as the chair of the Arkansas Parent Counsel Commission, on the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) executive board and the editorial board of the American Bar Association (ABA) Section of Dispute Resolution Magazine. She has been the president of the Arkansas Conflict Resolution Association, the co-chair of the American Bar Association Section on Dispute Resolution annual conference and on the executive board of the AALS ADR Section. In Arkansas she is a consultant for ongoing juvenile mediation projects for the Administrative Office of the Courts and has served on numerous boards and subcommittees for the Arkansas Administrative Office of the Courts’ Court Improvement Project; the Arkansas Alternative Dispute Resolution Commission; the Arkansas Access to Justice Commission; Arkansas Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the Arkansas Women’s Leadership Forum. Nationally she has been a resource for the ABA Section on Dispute Resolution, AFCC, the Family Court Review and the National Child Welfare Decision-Making Network. She won the Bowen School of Law Faculty Excellence Award for Public Service in 2004 and 2013.

Professor Browe Olson is a frequent national speaker and trainer on communication, mediation, domestic violence and children’s legal issues. Before coming to Bowen, she was the Child Law Mediation Projects Coordinator and taught clinical and ADR courses at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, where she served as a senior editor of the Loyola Children’s Rights Journal and also held a graduate fellowship. Earlier, Professor Browe Olson spent almost three years working as an attorney, director and general counsel at Hilltop Communications, a small telecommunications company.

Professor Olson’s publications since 2016 include:

• Informed Neutrality and Participation in Special Education Mediation (to be published in the Family Court Review, Spring 2027)
• A Quieter Inequality: Embedded Assumptions, Power Imbalance, and the Unfulfilled Promise of Special Education Mediation for Volume III of the DISCUSSIONS IN DISPUTE RESOLUTION book series (submitted for review 6/2026)
• Collaborative Law and IPV Concerns, Essay on John Lande’s Article, Possibilities for Collaborative Law: Ethics and Practice of Lawyer Disqualification and Process Control in a New Model of Lawyering, in DISCUSSIONS IN DISPUTE RESOLUTION: The Coming of Age (Oxford, 2025)
• Co-Editor, Family Dispute Resolution: Process and Practice (Oxford University Press, 2024)
  Author, Chapter 13, Intimate Partner Violence and Family Dispute Resolution: Coercion, Capacity, and Control
• Family Engagement and Collaborative Processes, Book Chapter, NACC Red Book IV, Publisher: National Association of Counsel for Children, Fall 2022
• Post-Grillo: New Family Mediation Protections and Revised Dangers, Commentary on Trina Grillo’s Article, The Mediation Alternative: Process Dangers, in DISCUSSIONS IN DISPUTE RESOLUTION: THE FORMATIVE ARTICLES (Hinshaw, Schneider, and Cole, Eds.) (Oxford Univ. Press Book, 2021)
• Family Engagement and Collaborative Decision-Making Processes Provide Multiple Benefits in Child Welfare Cases, 58 Fam. Ct. Rev. 937 (2020)
• Guest Editors’ Introduction to the 2020 Special Issue on Dependency Courts, 58 Fam. Ct. Rev. 870 (2020)
• The View from Minnesota: How Early Neutral Evaluation Can Help in Family Cases, co-written with Marty Swaden, ABA Dispute Resolution Mag., Spring 2019 at 14, (republished in Summer 2019 by the ABA solo, small firm and general practice section)
• Model Child Protection Mediator Competencies (co-edited with Laura Bassein, Gregory Firestone, FL Marilou Giovannucci, and Susan Storcel, (AFCC publications, 2019)
• Mediation Best Practices: Working with Non-Represented Litigants, AFCC Essay Series, Spring 2017
• Chapter 26, Family Centered Decision Making and Alternative Dispute Resolution, Child Welfare Law and Practice, Duquette, Haralambie and Sankaran, Editors, National Association of Counsel for Children (NACC), Bradford Publishing Company, Summer 2016
• Book Review: The Conflict Paradox: Seven Dilemmas at the Core of Disputes by Bernie Mayer, 54 Fam. Ct. Rev. 530, Summer 2016
• Practical Challenges: One Crucial Skill: Knowing How, When, and Why to Go into Caucus, ABA Dispute Resolution Mag., Winter 2016, at 32